Prologue

Saint Catherine’s School for Boys
Near Santa Fe, New Mexico
Ten years ago—Friday, August 15, 11:00 P.M.
I’M NOT afraid of going to hell. Not one damn bit.

We’re deep in the woods, miles from the boys’ dormitory, and my thighs are burning because I walked all this way with Sister Bernadette on my back. Now I’ve got her laid out on the soggy ground underneath a hulking ponderosa pine. A bright rim of moonlight encircles her face. Black robes flow around her, engulfing her small body and blending with the night. Her face, floating on top of all that darkness, reminds me of a ghost-head in a haunted house—but she’s not dead.

Not yet.

My cheek stings where Sister scratched me. I wipe the spot with my sleeve and sniff the air soaked with rotting moss, sickly-sweet pine sap and fresh piss. I pissed myself when I clubbed her on the head with that croquet mallet. Ironic, since my pissing problem is why I picked Sister Bernadette in the first place. She ought to have left that alone.

I hear a gurgling noise.

Good.

Sister Bernadette is starting to come around.

This is what I’ve been waiting for.

With her rosary wound tightly around my forearm, the grooves of the carved sandalwood beads cutting deep into the flesh of my wrist, I squat down on rubber legs, shove my hands under her armpits and drag her into a sitting position against the fat tree trunk. Her head slumps forward, but I yank her by the hair until her face tilts up, and her cloudy eyes open to meet mine. Her lips are moving. Syllables form within the bubbles coming out of her mouth. I press my stinging cheek against her cold, sticky one.

Like a lover, she whispers in my ear, “God is merciful.”

The nuns have got one fucked-up idea of mercy.

“Repent.” She’s gasping. “Heaven…”

“I’m too far gone for heaven.”

The God I know is just and fierce and is never going to let a creep like me through the pearly gates because I say a few Hail Marys. “God metes out justice, and that’s how I know I will not be going to heaven.”

To prove my point, I draw back, pull out my pocketknife, and press the silver blade against her throat. Tonight, I am more than a shadow. A shadow can’t feel the weight of the knife in his palm. A shadow can’t shiver in anticipation. A shadow is not to be feared, but I am not a shadow. Not in this moment.

She moves her lips some more, but this time, no sound comes out. I can see in her eyes what she wants to say to me. Don’t do it. You’ll go to hell.

I twist the knife so that the tip bites into the sweet hollow of her throat. “I’m not afraid of going to hell.”

It’s the idea of purgatory that makes my teeth hurt and my stomach cramp and my shit go to water. I mean what if my heart isn’t black enough to guarantee me a passage straight to hell? What if God slams down his gavel and says, Son, you’re a sinner, but I have to take your family situation into account. That’s a mitigating circumstance.

A single drop of blood drips off my blade like a tear.

“What if God sends me to purgatory?” My words taste like puke on my tongue. “I’d rather dangle over a fiery pit for eternity than spend a single day of the afterlife in a place like this one.”

I watch a spider crawl across her face.

My thoughts crawl around my brain like that spider.

You could make a pretty good case, I think, that St. Catherine’s School for Boys is earth’s version of purgatory. I mean, it’s a place where you don’t exist. A place where no one curses you, but no one loves you either. Sure, back home, your father hits you and calls you a bastard, but you are a bastard, so its okay he calls you one. Behind me, I hear the sound of rustling leaves and cast a glance over my shoulder.

Do it! You want to get into hell, don’t you?

I turn back to sister and flick the spider off her cheek.

The spider disappears, but I’m still here.

At St. Catherine’s no one notices you enough to knock you around. Every day is the same as the one that came before it, and the one that’s coming after. At St. Catherine’s you wait and wait for your turn to leave, only guess what, you dumb-ass bastard, your turn is never going to come, because you, my friend, are in purgatory, and you can’t get out until you repent.

Sister Bernadette lets out another gurgle.

I spit right in her face.

I won’t repent, and I can’t bear to spend eternity in purgatory, which is I why I came up with a plan. A plan that’ll rocket me straight past purgatory, directly to hell.

Sister Bernadette is the first page of my blueprint. I have the book to guide me the rest of the way. For her sake, not mine, I make the sign of the cross.

She’s not moving, but her eyes are open, and I hear her breathing. I want her to know she is going to die. “You are going to help me get into hell. In return, I will help you get into heaven.”

I shake my arm and loosen the rosary. The strand slithers down my wrist. One bead after another drops into my open palm, electrifying my skin at the point of contact. My blood zings through me, like a high-voltage current. I am not a shadow.

A branch snaps, making my hands shake with the need to hurry.

What are you waiting for my friend?

Is Sister Bernadette afraid?

She has to be. Hungry for her fear, I squeeze my thighs together, and then I push my face close and look deep in her eyes.

“The blood of the lamb will wash away your sins.” She gasps, and her eyes roll back. “Repent.”

My heart slams shut.

I begin the prayers.
Chapter One

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Present Day—Saturday, July 20, 1:00 P.M.

Man, she’s something.

Luke Jericho halted mid-stride, and the sophisticated chatter around him dimmed to an indistinct buzz. Customers jamming the art gallery had turned the air hot, and the aromas of perfume and perspiration clashed. His gaze sketched the cut muscles of the woman’s shoulders before swerving to the tantalizing V of her low-back dress. There, slick fabric met soft skin just in time to hide the thong she must be wearing. His fingers found the cold silk knot of his tie and worked it loose. He let his glance dot down the line of her spine, then swoop over the arc of her ass. It was the shimmer of Mediterranean-blue satin, illuminated beneath art lights, that had first drawn his eye, her seductive shape that had pulled him up short, but it was her stance—her pose—that had his blood expanding like hot mercury under glass.

Head tilted, front foot cocked back on its stiletto, the woman studied one of Luke’s favorite pieces—his brother Dante’s mixed-media. A piece Luke had hand-selected and quietly inserted into this show of local artists in the hopes a positive response might bolster his brother’s beleaguered self-esteem.

The woman couldn’t take her eyes off the piece, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the woman. Her right arm floated, as if she were battling the urge to reach out and touch the multi-textured painting. Though her back was to him, he could picture her face, pensive, enraptured. Her lips would be parted and sensual. He savored the swell of her bottom beneath the blue dress. Given the way the fabric clung to her curves, he’d obviously guessed right about the thong. She smoothed the satin with her hand, and he rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. Ha. Any minute now she’d turn and ruin his fantasy with what was sure to turn out to be the most ordinary mug in the room.

And then she did turn, and damned if her mug wasn’t ordinary at all, but she didn’t appear enraptured. Inquisitive eyes, with a distinct undercurrent of melancholy, searched the room and found him. Then, delicate brows raised high, her mouth firmed into a hard line—even thinned, her blood-red lips were temptation itself—she jerked to a rigid posture and marched, yeah, marched, straight at him.

Hot ass. Great mouth. Damn lot of nerve.

“I could feel your stare,” she said.

“Kind of full of yourself, honey.”

A flush of scarlet flared across her chest, leading his attention to her lovely, natural breasts, mostly, but not entirely, concealed by a classic neckline. With effort, he raised his eyes to meet hers. Green. Skin, porcelain. Hair, fiery—like her cheeks—and flowing. She looked like a mermaid. Not the soft kind, the kind with teeth.

“I don’t like to be ogled.” Apparently she intended to stand her ground.

He decided to stand his as well. That low-back number she had on might be considered relatively tame in a room with more breasts on display than a Picasso exhibit, but there was something about the way she wore it. “Then you shouldn’t have worn that dress, darlin’.”

Her brow arched higher in challenge. “Which is it? Honey or darlin’?”

“Let’s go with honey. You look sweet.” Not at the moment she didn’t, but he’d sure like to try and draw the sugar out of her. This woman was easily as interesting and no less beautiful than his best gallery piece, and she didn’t seem to be reacting to him per the usual script. He noticed his hand floating up, reaching out, just as her hand had reached for the painting. Like his mesmerizing customer, he knew better than to touch the display, but it was hard to resist the urge.

Her body drew back, and her shoulders hunched. “You’re aware there’s a serial killer on the loose?”

Luke, you incredible ass.

No wonder she didn’t appreciate his lingering looks. Every woman he knew was on full alert. The Jericho charm might or might not be able to get him out of this one, but he figured she was worth a shot. “Here, in this gallery? In broad daylight?” He searched the room with his gaze and made his tone light. “Or are you saying you don’t like being sized up for the kill?” He patted his suit pockets, made a big show of it and then stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I seem to have misplaced my rosary somewhere, I don’t suppose you’ve seen it?”

Her shoulders eased back to a natural position.

“Seriously, do I look like someone who’d be called The Saint?”

If the glove doesn’t fit…

Her lips threatened to curve up at the corners. “No. I don’t suppose you do.” Another beat, and then her smile bloomed in earnest. “Looking a little is one thing, maybe it’s even flattering…but you seem to have exceeded your credit line.”

He turned his palms up. “Then I’d like to apply for an increase.”

At that, her pretty head tipped back, and she laughed, a big genuine laugh. It was the kind of laugh that was a touch too hearty for a polished society girl, which perhaps she wasn’t after all. It was also the kind of laugh he’d like to hear again. Of its own accord, his hand found his heart. “Listen, I’m honest-to-God sorry if I spooked you. That wasn’t my intention.”

Her expression was all softness now.

“Do you like the painting?” he asked, realizing that he cared more than he should about the answer.

“It’s quite…dark.” Her bottom lip shivered with the last word, and he could sense she found Dante’s painting disturbing.

Always on the defensive where his brother was concerned, his back stiffened. He tugged at his already loosened tie. “Artists are like that. I don’t judge them.”

“Of course. I-I wasn’t judging the artist. I was merely making an observation about the painting. It’s expressive, beautiful.”

Relaxing his stance, he pushed a hand through his hair.

She pushed a hand through her hair, and then her glance found her fancy-toed shoes. “Maybe I overreacted, maybe you weren’t even staring.”

Giving in to the urge to touch, he reached out and tilted her chin up until their eyes met. “I’m Luke Jericho, and you had it right the first time. I was staring. I was staring at—” He barely had time to register a startled flash of her green eyes before she turned on her heel and disappeared into the throng of gallery patrons.

He shrugged and said to the space where her scent still sweetened the air, “I was staring at your fascination. Your fascination fascinates me.”

Saturday, July 20, 1:30 P.M.

Faith Clancy strode across her nearly naked office and tossed her favorite firelight macaron clutch onto her desk. After rushing out of the gallery, she’d come to her office to regroup, mainly because it was nearby.

She could hear Ma’s voice now, see her wagging finger. “Luke Jericho? Sure’an you’ve gone and put your wee Irish foot in the stewpot now, Faith.”

Well, it was only a tiny misstep—what harm could possibly come of it? She braced her palms against the windowsill. Teeth clenched, she heaved with all her might until wood screeched against wood and the window lurched open.

A full inch.

Swell.

Summers in Santa Fe were supposed to be temperate, and she hadn’t invested in an air conditioner for her new office. She sucked in a deep breath, but the currentless summer air brought little relief from the heat. Lifting her hair off the back of her damp neck with one hand, she reached over and dialed on the big standing fan next to the desk with the other. The dinosaur whirred to life without a hiccup.

That made one thing gone right today.

The relaxing Saturday afternoon she’d been looking forward to all week had been derailed, thanks to Luke Jericho. Okay, that wasn’t even half fair. In reality, the wheels of her day had never touched down on the track to begin with. She’d awakened this morning with a knot in her stomach and an ache in her heart—missing Danny and Katie.

Walk it off, she’d thought. Dress up. Take in the sights. Act like you’re part of the Santa Fe scene and soon enough you will be. Determined to forget the homesick rumbling in her chest, Faith had plucked a confidence boosting little number from her closet, slipped on a pair of heels and headed out to mingle with polite society. Even if she didn’t feel like she fit in, at least she would look the part. But the first gallery she’d entered, she’d dunked her foot in the stewpot—crossing swords with, and then, even worse, flirting with the brother of a patient.

Rather bad luck considering she had just one patient.

Her toe started to tap.

Her gaze swept the office and landed on the only adornment of the freshly-painted walls—her diplomas and certificates, arranged in an impressive display with her psychiatric board certification center stage. A Yale-educated doctor. Ma and Da would’ve been proud, even if they might’ve clucked their tongues at the psychiatrist part. She blinked until her vision cleared. It wasn’t only Danny and Katie she was missing today.

She kicked off her blasted shoes and shook off her homesick blues…only to find her mind returning to the gallery and her encounter with a man who was strictly off limits.

There was no point chastising herself for walking into the art gallery in the first place, or for refusing to pretend she didn’t notice the man who was eyeing her like she was high tea in a whorehouse, and he a starving sailor.

Care for a macaron, sir?

Had she realized her admirer was Luke Jericho, she would’ve walked away without confronting him, but how was she to know him by sight? It wasn’t as if she spent her spare time flipping through photos of town royalty in the society pages.

She’d recognized his name instantly, however, and not only because she was treating his half-brother, Dante. The Jericho family had a sprawling ranch outside town and an interest in a number of local businesses. But most of their wealth, she’d heard, came from oil. The Jerichos, at least the legitimate ones, had money. Barrels and barrels of it.

Luke’s name was on the lips of every unattached female in town—from the clerk at the local Shop and Save to the debutant docent at the Georgia O’Keeffe museum:

Single.

Handsome.

Criminally rich.

Luke Jericho, they whispered.

When she’d turned to find him watching her, his heated gaze had caused her very bones to sizzle. Luke had stood formidably tall, dressed in an Armani suit that couldn’t hide his rancher’s physique. The gallery lights seemed to spin his straw-colored hair into gold and ignite blue fire in his eyes. She could still feel his gaze raking over her in that casual way, as if he didn’t wish to conceal his appetites. It was easy to see how some women might become undone in his presence. She eased closer to the fan.

“Dr. Clancy.”

That low male voice gave her a fizzy, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, like she’d just downed an Alka-Seltzer on top of the flu. When you’re all alone in a room, and someone else speaks, it’s just plain creepy.

It only took a millisecond to recognize the voice, but at a time when someone dubbed The Santa Fe Saint was on a killing spree, that was one millisecond too long. Icy tendrils of fear wrapped themselves around her chest, squeezing until it hurt her heart to go on beating. The cold certainty that things were not as they should be made the backs of her knees quiver. Then recognition kicked in, and her breath released in a whoosh.

It’s only Dante.

She pasted on a neutral expression and turned to face him. How’d he gotten in? The entrance was locked; she was certain of it.

“Did I frighten you?”

She inclined her head toward the front door to her office, which was indeed locked, and said, “Next time, Dante, I’d prefer you use the main entrance…and knock.”

“I came in the back.”

That much was obvious now that she’d regained her wits. “That’s my private entrance. It’s not intended for use by patients.” Stupid of her to leave it unlocked, but it was midday and she hadn’t expected an ambush.

To buy another moment to compose herself, she went to her bookcase and inspected its contents. Toward the middle, Freud’s “Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis” leaned haphazardly in the direction of its opponent, Skinner’s “Behavior Therapy”. A paperback version of “A Systems Approach to Family Therapy” had fallen flat, not quite bridging the gap between the warring classics.

Dante crossed the distance between them, finishing directly in front of her, invading her personal space. “Quite right. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She caught a blast of breath, pungent and wrong—a Listerine candle floating in a jar of whiskey. In self-defense, she took a step back before looking up at her patient’s face. Dante possessed his brother’s intimidating height, but unlike Luke, his hair was jet black, and his coal-colored eyes were so dark it was hard to distinguish the pupil from the iris. Despite Dante’s dark complexion and the roughness of his features—he had a previously broken nose and a shiny pink scar that gashed across his cheekbone into his upper lip—there was a distinct family resemblance between the Jericho brothers. Luke was the fair-haired son to Dante’s black sheep, and even their respective phenotypes fit the cliche.

Dante took a step forward.

She took another deep step back, bumping her rear-end against wood. With one hand she reached behind her and felt for the smooth rim of her desktop. With the other hand, she put up a stop sign. “Stay right where you are.”

He halted, and she edged her way behind her desk, using it as a barrier between herself and Dante. Maybe she should advise him to enroll in a social skills class since he didn’t seem to realize how uncomfortable he was making her. Though she knew full well Dante wasn’t on her schedule today—no one was on her schedule today—she powered on her computer. “Hang on a second while I check my calendar.”

“All right.” At least he had the courtesy to play along.

When he rested his hand on her desk, she noticed he was carrying a folded newspaper. She’d already seen today’s headline, and it had given her the shivers. “Any minute now.” She signaled to Dante with an upheld index finger.

He nodded, and, in what seemed an eternity of time, her computer finished booting. She navigated from the welcome screen to her schedule, and then in a firm, matter-of-fact voice, she told him, “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. Your appointment isn’t until Monday at four pm.”

As he took another step closer, a muscle twitched in his jaw. He didn’t seem to care when his appointment was. Gesturing toward the leather armchair on the patient side of her desk, she fended him off. “Have a seat right there.” If she could get him to sit down, maybe she could gain control of the situation; she really ought to hear him out long enough to make sure this wasn’t some sort of emergency.

Dante didn’t sit. Instead, from across the desk, his body inclined forward. Her throat went dry, and her speeding pulse signaled a warning. If this were an emergency, he most likely would have tried to contact her through her answering service, besides which, he’d had plenty of time already to mention anything urgent. He must’ve known he didn’t have an appointment today, so what the hell was he doing here on a Saturday?

Dante had no reason at all to expect her to be here. In fact, the more she thought about it, the less sense his presence made. Pulling her shoulders back, she said, “I am sorry, but you need to leave. You’ll have to come back on Monday at four.”

The scar tissue above his mouth tugged his features into a menacing snarl. “I saw you talking to my brother.”

He’d followed her from the art gallery.

Even though Dante’s primary diagnosis was schizotypal personality disorder, there was a paranoid component present, exacerbated by a sense of guilt and a need to compensate for feelings of inferiority. His slip and slide grip on reality occasionally propelled him into a near delusional state. She could see him careening into a dark well of anxiety now, and she realized she needed to reassure him she wasn’t colluding with his half-brother against him. “I wasn’t talking to your brother about you. In fact, I didn’t have any idea I had wandered into your brother’s art gallery until he…introduced himself.”

“I don’t believe you.”

As fast as her heart was galloping, she managed a controlled reply. “That hardly bodes well for our relationship as doctor and patient, does it? But the truth is, we were discussing a painting.”

“Discussing my painting, discussing me, same difference.”

His painting?

That bit of information did nothing to diminish her growing sense of apprehension. That painting had had a darkness in it like nothing she’d ever seen before. A darkness that had captivated her attention, daring her to unravel its mysterious secrets.

Then Dante dropped into the kind of predatory crouch that would’ve made a kitten roll over and play dead.

But she wasn’t a kitten.

Defiantly, she exhaled slow and easy. If she didn’t know better, she’d think Dante was intentionally trying to frighten her. “I’m happy to see you during your regular hour, and we can schedule more frequent sessions if need be, but for now, I’m afraid it’s time for you to go.”

He returned to a stand. “You’re here all alone today.”

A shudder swept across her shoulders. He was right. No one else was in the building. She shared a secretary with an aesthetician down the hall, and today Stacy hadn’t been at her post. The aesthetician usually worked Saturday mornings, but she must’ve finished for the day and gone home. Home was where Faith wanted to go right now. She wished she’d kept her clutch in hand. Her phone was in that clutch. “We’ll work on that trust issue on Monday.”

With Dante’s gaze tracking hers, her eyes fell on her lovely macaron bag, lying on the desktop near his fingertips. He lifted the clutch as if to offer it to her, but then drew his hand back and stroked the satin shell against his face.

The room suddenly seemed too small. “I don’t mean to be unkind. We’ve been working hard these past few weeks and making good progress up to this point, and I’d hate to have to refer you to another psychiatrist, but I will if I have to.” She paused for breath.

“You’re barefoot.” Slowly, he licked his lower lip.

Feeling as vulnerable as if she were standing before him bare-naked instead of bare-footed, she slipped back into her shoes. Jerking a glance around the room, she cursed herself for furnishing the place so sparsely, as if she didn’t plan on staying in Santa Fe long. It wasn’t like she had anywhere else to call home anymore, and now here she stood without so much as a paperweight to conk someone on the head with if…The window was open, at least she could scream for help if necessary. “We’re done here.”

“I’m not leaving, Dr. Clancy.” He opened her purse, removed her cell and slid it into his pants pocket, then dropped her purse on the floor.

Her stomach got fizzy again, and she gripped the edge of her desk. Screaming didn’t seem like the most effective plan. It might destabilize him and cause him to do something they’d both regret. For now at least, a better plan was to stay calm and listen. If she could figure out what was going on inside his head, maybe she could stay a step ahead of him and diffuse the situation before it erupted into a full-scale nightmare. “Give me back my phone, and then we can talk.”

Here came that involuntary snarl of his. “No phone. And I’m not leaving until I’ve done what I came here to do.” Carefully unfolding the newspaper he’d brought with him, he showed her the headline:
Santa Fe Saint Claims Fourth Victim.

  Chapter 22

Since Always…

“Hank, this is what I want you to do.”  Captain Stein stepped closer and looked Hank squarely in the eyes with a very serious look, as if to say, this is damn important to me, so listen carefully and do what I tell you to do.  He had Hank’s attention anyway with everything he revealed without Hank making any effort to find out for himself.  All this information was just ‘falling into his lap’.

“Yes, sir.  What can I do?”  Hank was anxious to know what Stein had in mind for him to do.

“I want you to meet with the girl, Roberta.  Get to know her first; don’t get in too much of a hurry.  We don’t want to spook her into keeping her mouth shut.  Use your friendship with Max to get her confidence; she’ll want to know everything about him.  Use that to find out what you can about how much she knew or Max knew about what Schoellkopf was doing.  Find out who he was talking with and meeting with.  They should know who was coming to the house.   She probably knows what they did with the records from his office.  We need everything, every scrap.  Get any clue you might be able to schmooze out of her that could help us find the bastards who are still on the loose out there.”

Hank was dumbfounded—speechless—couldn’t contain his angst.  He felt the heat rising on his skin and knew he was turning a bright red.  He felt like he had unexpectedly been caught in a devious plot—couldn’t run forward or backward—couldn’t do anything to get out of the plight thrust upon him.

“What’s the matter, Hank, you look like you just saw a ghost?”

“Ah, ahhh, nothing, sir.  Ah…I…ah, just never imagined I would be doing this kind of thing.  You caught me off guard.  All I ever wanted was to be a farmer.  I never in a million years thought I would be chasing criminals in Germany.  I don’t know the first thing about this kind of work.”

“You’ll do fine, Hank.  I saw how you befriended Max and that makes you uniquely prepared to meet with his sister; his twin sister no less.  You’re just looking for information.  Get to know her; gain her trust.  You are a good man, Hank, just be yourself.  At any rate, none of us chose to be where we are now, but we have to do what we have to do, and this is what our country wants us to do right now.  I know how much you love America, and I know you’ll get this job done for all of us.  Now, pull yourself together, man, and get to work.  Go see her right now.”

Hank silently chaffed at the sound of being called a “good man”, which he certainly wasn’t feeling at the moment.  He was trapped in his own plot, thinking, Why in the hell did I ever agree to meet with Oliver and Max.  Now look at the fix I’m in.  I should have let well enough alone and never seen them again.  Gain her trust?  What about Max’s trust?   Hank felt dirty and didn’t see his way out of his mess, so he did the only thing he could think to do in the moment.

“Ok, if that’s what you think I should do, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“Those are my orders, Corporal.”

“Yes, sir.”

The ride out to the Displaced Persons Camp, the DPC, wasn’t nearly as long as Hank would have liked.  He needed time to think, but within minutes, the Army Jeep pulled up in front of the impoundment surrounded by a tall wire fence with barbed wire strung along the top.  He showed his identification papers and they drove into the compound.  Max had a sick feeling in his stomach and his hope that something would happen to keep his meeting with Roberta from happening was fading fast.  He had no alternative but to see his job through.  He felt like he was losing his integrity—felt ashamed.

The detained SS Officers and those related to them were being held apart from the displaced persons, the officers in one row of former Army barracks and the women and children in separate barracks, divided by another wire fence.  His meeting with Roberta had been arranged in a small building nearby that was formerly used as an office for the commander of the former German Army facility.

The guard escorted Hank into the building where Roberta was waiting in a small interrogation room in the rear.

“I’ll lock the door behind you.  Knock when you are finished.”  The guard instructed as Max entered the room.

Roberta sat on a straight backed wooden chair at a small table in the center of the room. The late morning sun streaked through the barred window at the rear casting its golden glow across the floor and onto the black prison gown she wore, forming the image of the bars from the window.  It struck Hank as a very sad scene.  He saw Roberta as a victim caught up in an evil situation.  Hank was more excited than he even imagined he would be—his breathing elevated and everything around him seemed to disappear except the vision of Roberta seated with her head down, eyes fixed blankly on the table.  He was still uncertain how he would begin, and awkwardly pulled his chair out and sat down without speaking, quietly looking at her as she sat still with her head hanging down—sadly, he thought.  The sight of her and the sadness evoked a flow of empathy in him.  He decided to sit quietly without speaking and wait for her.

Roberta didn’t move.  Hank was struck by how small she was, much smaller than Max, but with the same dark brown hair, almost black.  Her skin was silky smooth and her hands were so tiny and looked so innocent.  Hank realized he hadn’t looked at a woman seriously, really looked at a woman since he left Wisconsin.  It had been four months.  He was enjoying their silence.

After what seemed to Hank a very long time, Roberta slowly raised her head, revealing the dampness of tears on her cheeks; she had been crying for a very long time.  Then she raised her sad silver-blue-green eyes to meet his.  He was startled at how beautiful she was and her look seemed to penetrate right through him as if she could see all the way to his heart.  He was momentarily mesmerized; the golden glow of the sun seemed to shimmer, and his heart beat faster—he had not expected this.  It took a few moments before he realized they had not spoken.  He felt awkward.

“Hello, my name is Hank.”

“Do you know who I am?” She quietly intoned just those few words, but they were music in his ears, like the wind blowing gently through the pines atop the bluffs at home.  They beckoned him, made him feel warm.

“Yes, Roberta.”

“Then you know why I am here?’

“Yes, I do.”

“Are you going to help me?”

“Well, I don’t know?”  Hank was taken aback.  He didn’t expect her to ask for his help, but deep inside he knew that’s what he wanted to do.   It was his natural instinct to help.  He had no idea what she had been told of his visit.  “What do you think I can help you with?”

“They broke into my home and took me away.  I have not done anything wrong.  I am innocent.  I had no idea what my father was doing in the SS.  I only know that he is a very generous and kind man who is fair and just.  Why have you imprisoned me?”  Roberta spoke pitifully from her broken heart.  It was obvious she was suffering greatly in her circumstances.  “Are you here to interrogate me too?  Like the others?  Do you want to force me to say things that are not true?  Should I tell you lies so you will leave me alone?  They told me my father is dead, that he killed himself that he didn’t really care about me.  How could they be so cruel?  Why?  Why?  Why?”  Roberta began sobbing uncontrollably, and Hank felt the full emotional burden of her pain, reacting how he would to any person in need; he reached his arm around her shoulders and comforted her.

“It’s OK.  It’s OK.  I understand.  Go ahead and cry.  I don’t mind.  There, there.”  Hank was drawn to her as if by a spiritual force, not a magical or religious experience, but a feeling he understood her and felt her pain intensely.

It was several minutes before Roberta could compose herself.  Hank withdrew his arm somewhat reluctantly.  She felt really good to him.

“No, Roberta, I am not here to interrogate you.  I’m not going to badger you, threaten you, or abuse you in any way.  I am very sorry about your father.  I’m sure he was a very good man and he loved you very much.  I need to get to know you better so I can understand how I can help you.  There is nothing I would like better than for you to be able to get out of here and go home.  This war has been miserable for all of us.”

“Home?  Home?  I have no home.  My home in Munich was given to the Nazi’s.  The British have taken my home here in Hamburg.  My mother is dead, now they tell me my father is dead, and my brother was taken prisoner by you Americans and I don’t know if he is alive or dead!  I have nothing, nothing, and no one!”

Hank was startled.  It was enough that Roberta began sobbing again, but he was surprised to learn she had not accepted that her father was dead, and she didn’t know about Max either.  Hank felt an incredible sadness for her, but he thought better of telling her that Max was alive and he knew where Max was, and that Max was looking for her.  These were things he could use at the right time to get Roberta to cooperate and maybe even to forge a friendship.  He would need time to decide how to proceed, and just when to tell her these things.  He needed to get out of there for the time being and come back prepared the next day.  At that moment his head and his heart were at odds with each other.  He needed time to get his emotions sorted out, and didn’t know for sure what he wanted for himself.  The words his father spoke to him the last night they were together rang in his ears… sometimes your special moments will grab you unexpectedly.  No matter how they come, you have to be ready.  Hank wondered if this was such a moment.  His heart seemed to be immersed in ecstasy, but his head was pulling him back—trying to discern the wisdom of his father’s words.  The moment and its illumination necessarily had to pass, but the conviction it etched in his heart would remain forever.

Hank knew Captain Stein would be anxious to hear how his meeting went, so he was prepared with a very positive report, telling the Captain that it went very well; he had established a great rapport and formed the beginning of a friendship that surely would yield good results.  It would just take more time.  He didn’t want to push too hard.  Stein thought that was great, just what he had thought would be the best approach himself.  He knew it would take a little time.

Sleep never really came for Hank that night.  Every time he dozed off he saw Roberta looking at him with those big beautiful eyes, hair flowing in the breeze and a smile on her lips that melted his heart.  He tossed and turned, dozed off again, and was awakened time and again by his vision of Roberta.  His visions were interrupted with his confusion about what or when to talk with Roberta about her father and Max—then, of course, there was Max, and Oliver, who were anxious to hear from him about Roberta the next evening.  Hank was in a mess.

Toward the early morning, he gave up trying to sleep.  He lay in his bunk wrestling his anxiety about how he would approach Roberta to get information that would satisfy Stein.  He was in a quandary over forces pulling him in opposing directions.  He didn’t believe Roberta was guilty of doing anything to support the Nazi’s and he didn’t think she knew anything about what her father was doing, but he was under pressure to come up with clues.  The opposing force was more compelling— he thought he might be in love for the very first time.  Whatever he chose to do, he would follow his heart.

The first thing the next morning, he left for the prison camp, arriving early.  He asked for Roberta to be summoned and sat nervously at the table for what seemed a very long time.  His heart leaped when he heard footsteps on the wooden floor and rose to face the door, not sure if she would be happy to see him again, but hoping she would.  She stood just inside the door with her head tilted toward the floor until the guard closed the door behind her and slid the lock in place with a heavy clunk.

When she raised her head Hank captured the image he would remember all his life.  Roberta’s eyes sparkled in a way he had never seen eyes sparkle, the smile on her lips stretched wide, she lighted up the room like sunshine, and she vanquished any reservation that remained.  She really was happy to see him!  And, she was so beautiful.  He was in love.  He had the sensation of having no weight, all the concerns of his life evaporated, nothing else mattered.

His first impulse was to rush toward her, wrap her in his arms and caress her, but he hesitated, thinking it may not be what he hoped.  At that first movement, Roberta leaped forward into his arms.  He felt the brush of her hair and the exquisite softness of her cheek on his as her arms stretched up to squeeze his neck and he leaned to fold her into his arms.   The warmth of her body pressed firmly against him brought a surge of emotion he didn’t know could be so strong.  He longed to kiss her lips, but held her tightly, her head pressed against his neck and shoulder, and felt her body gently throbbing as her warm tears of joy wet his neck and cheek.  It had been so long since he felt such intimacy.

“Roberta, you feel the same way I do don’t you?
“Oh, Hank, It has been so long since anyone cared how I feel; so long since I have felt anyone so sensitive, who cared about me.  I thought I would never feel this way about anyone!  I feel like we have known each other a very long time, well, since forever.”

“I feel the same way!”  Hank was giddy, as excited as a young high school boy at his first prom with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.  Then he realized there was something he had to tell her that he must say right away.

“Roberta, I have good news for you?”

Roberta stood back and looked up at Hank with a look Hank understood.  She wanted good news, she was desperate for good news.  She couldn’t speak, her expression said, tell me…tell me, now!

“Max is alive!”

Hank caught Roberta as her legs buckled under her, falling into his arms as she wept with joy.  Once again she was comforted in his arms.  Hank felt good.  He was able to make her happy.

She quickly composed herself.  “Where is he?”  Is he here, in Germany?  Has he been wounded?  Is he well?”

“Whoa, whoa, little one.  Yes, he is here in Hamburg and he is perfectly fine.  He was captured by our American troops in France and has been in a prison camp in America, but now he is here in Hamburg, safe and sound.”

“Here in Hamburg?!  When can I see him? Can he come here?”

“Those are good questions, but the answers are not easy.  Of course, he cannot come here to see you, or he would be arrested just like you.  And, of course, you cannot go to see him.  But I have an idea that may have to suffice as the best we can do for now.”

“What is it?  Tell me!”

“I will continue to meet with you as we have been meeting.  I can carry messages for both of you, but they will have to be verbal only.  I don’t want to risk anything written.  I know you want to see him and hold him, but we cannot do that now.  But, I have an idea.  I will arrange for Max to come near here at a distance and you can see each other across the field.  Look out that window.  You see there is a woods there?  I will have Max come to the woods so you can see him and he can see you.  I know it isn’t what you would like, but for now it may be the best I can do.”

“Anything, anything.  I’m so happy to know he is alive.  Thank you, thank you, my darling!”

Her words startled him.  My darling, he pondered the thought.  He had never heard those words from anyone but his mother.  They felt good, really good, and he was delighted to see her happy.

 

 

 

Chapter 23

…and Forever

There was little rest for Hank again that night.  His heart and his mind were being pulled in different directions.  He had made commitments to Max and Oliver, then to Captain Stein, and now to Roberta.  He had always been trusted by everyone, a pillar of integrity.  Now, he would surely destroy that reputation.  As he tossed and turned, and scolded himself for getting himself into such a quandary, his thoughts kept going back to Roberta, warm thoughts full of wonder and excitement.  But, as the night progressed, doubts began to creep into his head.

Hank couldn’t deny how he felt; he felt fantastic, incredible.  He had met the girl of his dreams—love at first sight.  He couldn’t wait to see her again.  She was everything he had always imagined she would be, everything he hoped for in a woman.  Yet, he began to wonder, is this real?  Could it be possible for two people to be in love when they’ve only known each other for two days?  Was he being foolish?  Had the events of the past five months and his absence from the comforts of home made him vulnerable in a dangerous way?  A frightful pang of fear shot through his gut as he thought: Is she just using me? Does she see me as her way out of confinement? Am I being fooled by her? Maybe she doesn’t care about me at all; she only needs me to get what she really wants.  Why should I trust her?  I don’t really know her.  Oh, what a fool I must be to fall for the first beautiful woman who shows an interest in me, who caresses me.  Am I that vulnerable?  Am I that foolish?

Thoughts of Roberta dazzled and confused him; nothing in his young life had ever left him so unsure of himself.  No amount of concentration overcame the cascade of emotions flooding his chest.  He tossed and turned long into the night, soaked his pillow through with his sweat, though he wasn’t warm, and felt his pulse exploding his temples; alternating between visions of pure, romantic love and sheer foolishness.  The pull on his heart skidded back and forth like a tug of war.  That is…until he recalled his mother’s words, spoken on his eighteenth birthday, just after a high school sweetheart informed him that another man had won her heart.

Hank, you are such a precious son.  I adore you.  I am sad when you are sad, but you must know this pain you feel will pass.  Sometimes love is fleeting, it may disappear as quickly as it appears.  You have your whole life ahead of you.  I know you will meet the woman who will love you completely, and for your lifetime.  I have no doubt.  Love between a man and a woman cannot be easily defined; love comes in many forms and is never the same for everyone.  Almost always love charges into your life like a cosmic experience, even magical, it is so difficult to predict or understand.  Sometimes that special feeling in your heart really is true love—sometimes not.  When love comes suddenly, we can be swept off our feet.  It’s a dazzling experience that confuses us.  That’s often called love at first sight, but it’s never really love at first sight.  If it happens to you, don’t take it for granted, it’s very special and you won’t want to lose it.  It’s one of the best feelings you will ever have, and I believe the best beginning for true love.

Don’t be deceived, true love has to be built; it takes a lot of hard work and may take a very long time.  When two people stop working on their love, it fades, no matter if it’s the first month, the first year, the tenth or the twenty-fifth.  There will always be difficulties and complications, that’s how life is, not just marriage.  Use those difficulties to work on making your marriage stronger.  Don’t expect not to have challenges, welcome them and be ready to take them on together.  Everything really worthwhile in your life will require hard work.  Your marriage is the one very most worthwhile jewel you will ever have.

Laying silently in the darkness, eyes wide open, thinking warm thoughts of his mother, a smile came across his face.  Of course, he thought, mother is right.  I have to work on it.  Tomorrow I’ll have to find out if Roberta truly feels the same way about me.  Sleep finally came.

He should have been exhausted the next morning, with little sleep and tormented the whole night through with all his mixed emotions, but his adrenalin had taken over.  Hank needed to get things resolved, and though he wasn’t sure how to do that, he needed to attack his demons head on.  By the time he met with Oliver and Max in the evening he wanted to have his life back on track.  Since he was drafted there had not been a dull day in Hank’s life.  He never knew quite what to expect, and that day would be no different.  It would begin with his report to Captain Stein.

Hank was surprised to see the Captain waiting for him.  Stein motioned Hank to his office as soon as Hank appeared in the doorway.  Hank’s curiosity was aroused.

“Hank, we have to release everyone except the SS Officers.  The staff and family are being released as soon as possible.   We’ll have 30 days to hold the officers and unless we can get enough evidence they participated in war crimes we’ll have to release them too!  Something about the Geneva Convention says we can’t hold them unless we have sufficient evidence to take them to trial.  It’s foolish as far as I’m concerned.  What kind of fair trial did the millions of dead Jews get?”

Hank was stunned again.  His first emotion was that he was losing Roberta, but his first thought was that might be best.  He had to set his feelings aside and listen to Stein without revealing his feelings.

“I’m sorry, sir.  I know how important this is to you.  It really would be a shame if guilty men went free.”

“Ya, well, there’s nothing we can do about it but work our butts off to get the evidence we need to hold the bastards.  That’s our job, and by God, we’re going to make sure every last one of them hangs for what they’ve done.  Did you get anything out of the girl?”

“I thought I was really close…I mean…I think she was beginning to trust me.  I needed more time; maybe a few more days, but I’m not sure she knew anything.”

“Come on, Corporal, of course she knows things.  I’ll bet she knows plenty.  We’re losing a good opportunity by letting them all go.  It makes our job harder.”

“What will we do now?”

“We’ll get busy interrogating the officers.  The British have been at it for weeks.  They have files on all of them.  The Russians are sending men to help too, and we’re getting some young Army lawyers by next week.  Today, you and I are going out there to go through files.  We’ll make a list of the ones that look like they were in charge, in some position of leadership, the higher the better, then we’ll start meeting with them.  I want to get the top guys.”

Hank didn’t know what to think.  His emotions all melted together in a jumble of confusion.  All he could do was follow orders for the moment, until he could sort through all the feelings bombarding him.

Within a few minutes he and Stein were on their way to the compound, where they came upon a blur of activity.  Those who were being released were jubilant as groups of them gathered in the streets to celebrate.  There was pitched cheering, yet, others pushed against the fence separating them from officers, loved ones and former employers who they would be leaving behind.  There was sadness and tears, as well as questions about what may lay ahead for each of them, the uncertainty for those who were released to communities that may not still exist, and for those who remained in custody, facing the possibility of imprisonment or death.

As Stein and Hank walked into the officer’s compound, Hank did his best to keep Stein from seeing him looking among those being released through the fence.  In spite of his doubts, his heart told him he was in love and he was growing desperate about losing Roberta so soon, thinking she could be gone forever, and wishing he could know for sure if what they had begun was truly love, or whether he was just a fool.  They were moving too quickly for him to see clearly.  He couldn’t find her.  They were up the steps and into the meeting hall, leaving behind any chance he might see her again.  He was numb, unaware of anything going on around him.

“Hank, Hank, come on, get moving.  Pay attention!”  Stein gave him a nudge toward the stairway leading to a room above, where they spent the rest of the morning poring through files, assessing information that had been gathered by the British, looking for clues to help them decide which officers they would interrogate first.  Stacks of files were set aside, awaiting the lawyer’s arrival.  Hank couldn’t focus his attention; all he could think about was that he may be losing the one person who was right for him, the one he would commit his life to.  Convicting German criminals wasn’t important to him at that moment.

By noon Stein was satisfied they had enough files to get started.  They were loaded in the back of the truck and about to leave.

“Captain Stein, I’d like to see if I can find Roberta and make an appeal to her to give us the information you believe she has.  Once she is gone, it will be lost.  I think it’s worth a try.”

“If you think so, Hank.  There can’t be any harm in trying.  In fact, I like your attitude.  Go ahead, get what you can, and jump on another truck heading back later.  I’ll see you in the morning.  Good luck.”

Hank felt relieved that Stein went along with the idea, but he felt a tinge of guilt for taking advantage of Stein’s trust in him.

Trucks loaded with released detainees were rolling out the gate as Hank walked over to the camp.  He ran alongside each truck calling Roberta’s name but got no response.  Others were still loading near a barracks building to the rear.  He ran into the building asking each person he came to about Roberta until an older woman stopped him.

“Yes.  Roberta was here.  But she has gone.”

Hank’s world came to a sudden stop.  He just stood there as people pushed past him toward the trucks.  He lost her.  She was gone.  Maybe she didn’t love him after all.  Maybe she just didn’t need him anymore.  He really didn’t know what to think.  He only knew this was the worst day of his life.

As he walked back toward the gate past the office where he had met with Roberta, the guard who had brought Roberta to the meetings called out to him.

“Corporal!  Corporal Fischer!  Come quickly.  There is someone who wants to see you.”

Hank wouldn’t allow himself to believe it could be her.  He hurried into the building and found the front office area empty, but the door to the room in back was ajar.  He slowly opened the door and there sat Roberta.  She leaped from her chair and into his arms with a scream of delight.

“Oh, Hank, Hank!  I knew you would come for me.  I knew it in my heart!”

“They told me you had left.  I thought you were gone!”

“I couldn’t go.  Where would I go without you now that I have found you?  I love you, Hank, I love you!  I feel like I have loved you since always, and forever.”

Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and her lips found his.  Her words washed away any doubt.  He had never known such elation.  He was in love.  It was real.  He was sure of it.

“I love you, Roberta.  I love you, too!”

 

Chapter 24

Dilemma

Hank was ready to spring into action.

“Roberta, I have to get back to headquarters, but here is what we must do.  Max will be in the woods at 1715 hours, just as we planned.”

Roberta couldn’t contain her excitement about finally seeing her brother.

“Oh my God!  Ohhhh, my God!  I’m going to see him!  I’m really going to see Max!”

“Listen carefully, Roberta, we have to be really careful about this.  All of the Allies have detachments assigned to find the people involved with the SS, so they’ll be looking for Max sooner or later, and maybe even now.  He’ll be taking a big risk coming near here, but the plan is already arranged and we can’t stop it now.  He will be in the woods at 1715, and you will have to be there to meet him.  He will be coming on a motorcycle, and there will be room for you in the sidecar with Max.  Just be sure you don’t get any nearer the camp or let anyone in the Occupation Force see you.  Get in the sidecar and get away from here as fast as you can; you can stop and embrace Max after you are far away from here.”

“But what about you, Hank?  When will I see you again?”

“I don’t know, my love, I don’t know right now.  I’ll have to figure that out.  I know where you will be with Max, so I’ll get there as soon as I can.  I have to take care of things here first.  Now go, get your bags together and walk to the woods while everyone is leaving so no one will notice you go, then hide there until you see the motorcycle.”

She reached up to hug Hank, holding him for a long, tender moment, as if she wasn’t sure she would see him again, and not wanting to accept that possibility.  She walked away without looking back, leery that she may lose him, but anxious to see Max, and not knowing what else to do but follow Hank’s instructions.

Hank caught the next truck back to headquarters and immediately went to Stein’s office, but didn’t find him there.

“Is Captain Stein about?”  He inquired of the orderly.

“He went to the camp.”

“Yes, I know, I went with him this morning, but he came back around noon.”

“Yes, he came back, but about half an hour ago he left for the camp again.  I don’t know what happened, but he was in a damn big hurry to get out of here.”

Hank wasn’t sure what to think about that, but he was worried.  He couldn’t imagine why Stein would turn around and go back so soon.  What was out there he needed to go back for so soon?  He was nervous about it, and sat at his desk and fidgeted through some files without really paying attention to what he was reading.  He couldn’t get it out of his mind that Stein was at the camp with Roberta.  His tension was becoming fierce.  About an hour later, Stein walked through the door…with Roberta following behind in the custody of two MP’s; she was crying.

Hank jumped to his feet, then slowly sank back trying not to look more alarmed than he should, not wanting to let Stein see the strength of his surprise and emotion.  Roberta glanced up to see Hank, but immediately lowered her face to the floor, not wanting to show her familiarity with him.

“Look who we have here, Hank—the pretty little Roberta has come to spend a little more time with us.”

“But, I thought we had to release all family members.”

“That’s what they said, but what they don’t know won’t hurt them, and I couldn’t let this one get away.  Her daddy was just too big in the SS to just let her walk away.  It bothered me all the way back, so I just turned around and went back for her; let them complain if they can figure out she wasn’t released.  By the time anyone knows she’s here, we’ll have what we want from her.  She’ll be our little secret, and in no time we’ll have her singing for us.  I’ll interrogate her right now while she’s frightened and upset—she may be vulnerable.  Then, I have a cozy little place set aside for her in the SS camp where she’ll be locked up until she decides to cooperate.”

The grin on Stein’s face made Hank sick to his stomach.  Didn’t anyone live by the rules anymore?  He thought to himself.  He felt the urge to kill Stein right on the spot; the strength of his anger surprised him, he didn’t know he could be so angry or think so violently.  He only knew he had to get Roberta away from Stein.

And Max!  He suddenly thought of Max who would be in the woods that evening looking for Roberta in the camp, across the field, but Roberta wouldn’t be there.  The camp holding the families would be empty.  What would Max think?  He would probable think Hank had deceived him.  He couldn’t get word to Max.  For the first time in Hank’s life, he had no idea what to do.  He just sank into his chair in despair, feeling like he was trapped in a complex web of lies and deceit.  Once again he wished he were back in the Baraboo Hills of Wisconsin where life was simple and good.  He thought, my mother wouldn’t like the mess I’ve made of things, not one bit!  I’ve got to figure out how to get myself out.

Hank walked the three miles out to the camp.  He had to meet Max to let him know what happened.  If Max found the camp empty he would surely think Hank tricked him.  All the while, as he walked, Hank’s thoughts were with Roberta being interrogated by Stein, and he grew angrier and angrier at Stein.

It was already 1730 by the time Hank walked into the woods.  At first he didn’t see Max and Robert hidden behind a thick stand of bushes, but they had seen him approaching.  Max called out when Hank came near.

“What’s going on here?  What kind of hoax is this?  It doesn’t look to me like anyone is even in that camp.”

“Calm down, Max, and let me explain.  I’m sorry.  I had everything set up, but my plan was upset.  The American Army lawyers decided they had to let all the families go unless they had sufficient evidence to hold them for crimes.  They were all released this morning.”

“Then where is Roberta?  Why isn’t she here with us?”

“I’m sorry, Max…”

“What?  Has something happened to her?  What happened, Hank?  What happened?!”

“She’s OK.  She’s not hurt.  It’s just that…well, Captain Stein is refusing to go along with the release order where Roberta is concerned.  She’s being held for interrogation.  Stein thinks she has information to help him find SS Officers he’s tracking down.”

“You mean he’s using her to get my father don’t you?”

“Well….no, Max, that’s not what I mean.  I, I…”

“You what?  What are you trying to say, Hank?”

“Max, your father is dead.”

“Dead?  When?  How?  Are you sure?  How do you know?”

“It’s official.  He’s on the list of deceased SS suspects at Headquarters.  I’m sorry, Max.”

Max bent over at the waist holding his face in his hands, staying still for a few seconds before going to one knee as if the wind had been knocked out of him.  He gasped, letting out several loud piercing cries that startled Hank, sounding like the awful squeals of death white-tailed deer made when they had been hit with his deadly bullets.

Momentarily regaining his composure, Max wanted information.  “How did it happen?  Do you know?  How did they kill him?”

“No one killed him, Max.  I’m sorry I’m the one who has to tell you this, but you deserve to know.  The end of the war was very chaotic.  Germany was losing huge numbers of men on both fronts, but most particularly on the Russian front.  Hitler was holed up in his bunker outside Berlin, but the Russians were closing in fast.  Hitler was not going to be taken alive.  He and his mistress, Eva Braun, planned to kill themselves with cyanide pills and they instructed all their staff to do the same rather than be taken alive and tortured by the Russians.  It’s unclear whether Hitler and Braun took the pills or if they shot themselves in the head; the details are still pretty murky, but they are both dead along with many of the top SS Officers.  Some of the Officers, like Heinrich Himmler, surrendered and are in custody waiting to be tried.  They will be convicted and shot, I am sure.”

“But my father was in Athens, Greece.”

“Yes, he was.  He was found there, in his office along with all of his senior staff.  They all took the cyanide when they heard Hitler was dead.”

Max wept as Hank and Richard moved away to give him time by himself.  Within a few minutes, Max had bravely composed himself, but exuded a determination Hank had not seen in him before.

“Roberta.  What about Roberta?  Where is she?”

“Stein has confined her in a special room among the Officers.  I haven’t been there to see exactly where she was taken, but the camp is heavily guarded, not like the camp where the families were detained.  If you are thinking of breaking her out, I think you would be foolish to try.”

“What about you, Hank?  Shouldn’t you be turning me in too?  What are you doing standing here telling me all this?  Aren’t you breaking your orders?”

“That’s right, Max, I’m in an incredibly awkward position here.  Sometimes the distinction between right and wrong gets really blurred.  A few months ago I thought morality and righteousness were crystal clear, but now I see how muddy the water can get.  I have compromised myself in more ways in the past few days than I ever thought I would in my entire life.  I’m not sure anymore what’s really important and what isn’t, and it’s even more complicated than you might suspect.”

“What is that supposed to mean?  It’s more complicated?”

“Well, as you know, I’ve met with Roberta the last couple days.  She is quite a woman, Roberta.”

The thought of Roberta stimulated Hank and he couldn’t keep a smile from forming on the corners of his lips though having just told Max about his father, he was trying his best to be stoic.

“I think we’re in love, Max.  Roberta and I are in love.”

Max didn’t say a thing, just stared dumbfounded at Hank, but after taking a moment to absorb the scene, Richard let out a laugh, causing Max to flash a stern look in his direction, shutting him up.

Max looked back at Hank.

“In love?  You’re in love with Roberta?  Just how do you think that can work, and in just two days?  Let me see here.  Oh yeah, you are an American, she is a German.  You’re assigned to track down SS Officers, and she’s the daughter of one of the highest ranking ones.  She’s, like in jail, and you are the jailer.  She’s about to go free and you are left behind in the American Army.  Now tell me, how do you think this is going to work for you?”

“What do you mean, she’s about to go free?”

“Like I said, she’s about to go free.  Our father is dead and she is all I have left in this world.  On the grave of my father, I swear to you, Roberta will not spend another night in her confinement.”

“You’re crazy, Max.  You’ll both be killed.  I understand how upset you are; I’d be just as upset if I just heard my father died, and I know it’s horrible that Roberta is being held.  You may not want to believe it, but I’m really upset about that too; even though it’s been only two days.  I love Roberta whether you want to believe it or not.  Now, let’s settle down here and think this through.”

“There’s nothing more to think about.  My mind is made up.  Now what are you going to do Hank?  Are you going to follow your heart or your orders?”

Hank felt like he was wrapped tightly in the middle of a huge spider web, and a deadly spider twice his size was coming for him.  He couldn’t move.  He felt doomed.  Maybe I deserve this.  Maybe this is what happens when you forget your values and compromise your integrity.  Maybe your guilt grows and grows until you can’t control it and it consumes you.  You finally see what you’ve done wrong, but it’s too late to do anything about it; there are too many things to deal with.

“Well, Hank?  What’s it going to be?  Are you with us or against us?  Are you in or out?”

Hank just shook his head slowly, disgusted that his actions had led to such a momentous decision point.  Visions of his home in Wisconsin flashed through his mind—his mother, father, sister, the farm, the hills, the lakes, fishing, hunting, and all the many things he loved and missed so much.  He was confused and conflicted.  His mind told him to do the right thing, but his heart ached.  He felt all that he had held most dear in his life passing away, while his heart yearned for Roberta, alone and locked up not more than two hundred yards away.  At that moment, his past seemed to slip painfully away, his present boiled, his future lay uncertain.  His world was closing in to suffocate him.

Moments passed fitfully as Hank contemplated his decision.

“I’m in…I’m in!   God help me, I’m in!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 25

Hold On, Berta

Once Hank committed himself to helping Max and Roberta he was fully engaged and wasn’t looking back.  In all probability he would never be able to go back to his former life, and he knew how much he was sacrificing.  Ironically, he again drew strength from his family in Wisconsin—a strong work ethic based on his German ancestry, and a determination to complete every task to the best of his ability.  “If you are going to do it, do the best job you can do and don’t give up until the job is done,” his father used to tell him.  His mind was clear, he accepted his predicament, and focused on his next challenge.  By the time the three of them returned to Richard’s place, Hank had a plan.

Oliver was livid when he heard that Roberta had been kept in custody when the others were released.  He never liked Stein and his expletive laced rant was replete with threats that he would personally kill Stein if he was given the chance.

Max heard all he wanted to hear from Oliver.

“Ok, Oliver, that’s enough!  Get over it.  We need to focus on the situation as it stands right now, and accomplish what we need.  We don’t want to further complicate matters with emotional outbursts or by taking actions that only get us deeper into trouble—calm down.”

Before Oliver could make his usual immature retort, Hank stepped up.

“I think I know how to get Roberta.”

Max was surprised. “Well, let’s hear it then.”

“Today, Stein came back to headquarters with Roberta and interrogated her there.  It’s a much more secure area and away from the SS Officers who I am sure will complain bitterly about her detainment.  I would guess those are the reasons he brought her there, and I’m willing to bet that’s what he will continue to do.  It also means he doesn’t have to go to the camp himself; he can stay in his comfortable surroundings.  Right now, Stein trusts me.  Until the lawyers arrive in a few days, it’s just the two of us and a couple clerks.

“I’ll volunteer to be the one to get Roberta from the camp tomorrow morning.  About half way back, the road goes through a heavily wooded area, just to the west of an old farmhouse that burned.  You can tell which one I mean.  It’s the only one near that area that has burned and the silo is still standing but its roof is gone.  Max, you drive the motorcycle out to the woods near that house and hide in the trees.  Go out early and find a way to get the bike out the back.  The area is full of back roads and paths used for farm wagons and animals.   This country is just like back home, there are old roads and trails going everywhere.  If you can find a way to get us out of  there without going back to the main road we can make our escape tomorrow; if not, we’ll have to come up with another plan.

“When we get to the farmhouse, I’ll have Roberta claim she has to relieve herself in a hurry—an emergency.  I’ll order the driver to stop so she can go behind the burned out barn.  I’ll stand watch in front of the barn.  Be sure you and the motorcycle are as close to the barn as you can get without being seen.  If the opportunity comes when the driver is not paying attention, Roberta and I will run to the woods where we will meet you.  On the motorcycle we can get back here well before they can catch us.  It will take the driver five or ten minutes to get back to headquarters and alert them.  He may not even care that we escape, everyone’s pretty upset that Stein held Roberta.  They don’t really want any part of it, but they’re afraid to say anything.”

Max was pensive, caught up in thinking through the plot, then his face broke out in a broad smile.

“Good, Hank.  I think it can work.  If I can’t find a route for our escape, then I won’t be there, and we’ll have to come up with another plan.  Good.  I know this kind of farm country very well.  You are right, there are dirt roads leading everywhere.  If necessary I may have to cut across a field or through a woods, but on the bike we can go where the Army trucks and Jeeps can’t go.  I’ll have a route planned by the time you get there; when will that be do you think?’

“I am guessing it will be around 0900.  Let’s say you get to the woods not later than 0830 to be on the safe side.”

Max was pleased and Oliver nodded his approval.  Max held out his hand to shake Hank’s; Oliver could tell Max was impressed.

“I like your idea, Hank, it was quick thinking.  You would have made a good officer.  Now, I’ll have Richard take you back while Oliver and I start thinking about how we get out of here once we have Roberta.  Thanks, Hank.  We’ll see you at the woods in the morning.”  Max had a big grin on his face.

Hank could hardly wait until morning, he was so excited.  He thought he would feel worse about running off from the Army, and he didn’t know if he would ever see home and his family again, but he was determined to see his plan through.  He didn’t like the thought that the Army, and maybe even Stein himself, would be after him, but strangely, he didn’t regret his decision.  If that was the price he would have to pay to be with Roberta and be in charge of his own life, then he was willing to pay it.  He felt no remorse, only excitement for what lay ahead.  The bare essentials were packed in a small duffel bag that wouldn’t be conspicuous.  He left all of his uniforms, except the one he wore.

By the time the bugler played “Taps” signaling the end of the day and lights-out, he and everyone in the barracks were in their bunks.  As soon as he closed his eyes he saw the image of Roberta against a backdrop of the moon and the stars as if the universe held their future together.   He never saw the heavens so bright and clear.  He chuckled to himself and a half grin lifted one side of his face as he thought to himself, They say we haven’t known each other long enough, but I’m not going to miss the one chance I may have in my life to keep the girl of my dreams—I know the shining star I see.  I don’t know what may come in the days ahead, but I know what tomorrow will bring, and I am at peace.

He slept so well that the next sound he heard was Reveille over the loudspeakers at 0600 hours instantly bringing him to attention.  It was still several hours before he would leave to escort Roberta to headquarters, and the wait would seem like an eternity.  He was showered, dressed, and had breakfast all before 0700.  He was so confident he would be able to make his arrangement with Stein he didn’t think much about it; everything seemed to be going according to plan.

To control his nervous energy, he went to headquarters early and shuffled through his files on SS fugitives while keeping one eye on the door for Stein, hoping he would also be in early.  No such luck, but Stein was right on time at 0800.

Just as Stein had the previous two days, he motioned Hank to his office as he walked in.  This time, Stein had a different look on his face, a curious look as if he had just discovered a big secret, and he was in a hurry.  Hank rose quickly, sensing an urgency, and sat across the desk from Stein.  Stein put his feet up on the desk and leaned back in his chair.  Hank hadn’t seen him do that before.  Stein’s “curious look” turned into a “you-won’t-believe-what-I-just-found-out” kind of expression that shook Hank up.  He wasn’t prepared for any surprises—not on this day!

“Guess who I just got off the phone with.”  Stein seemed to be baiting Hank and it made him even more uncomfortable, as if something big was about to happen and it wouldn’t be good.  Hank hesitated before he spoke.

“I couldn’t even guess, sir.”

“I’m Stein, Hank, Stein.  Unless there’s another officer present, like I said before, I’m just plain Stein.”

Hank was never comfortable calling him Stein, he thought it was just Stein’s way of getting people to drop their guard—and Hank wasn’t about to drop his guard.

“Gotcha, Stein.”  Two could play the casual game, Hank mused to himself.

“I didn’t believe it would happen.  It’s a miracle!  They found Haynes ALIVE!  I didn’t get the full details, but apparently he was able to make it to shore before he lost consciousness and was taken in by a family who were squatting in an old house in the woods near the river.  I guess he fell into a coma and had some broken bones, but he was groaning and they thought he was telling them not to let anyone know he was there.  The Military Police finally found him when they searched the house.  Damndest story I’ve heard in all my life!”

Hank nearly fell out of his chair.  He was sure the terrified look on his face would give away the secret he was holding tightly, as if with Haynes alive, Hank would now become the target of the Army’s investigation.  His plan would be ruined.

“Ha! You’re just as surprised as I am aren’t you.  I didn’t think there was any way on God’s green earth Haynes could survive that fall into the river.  I thought sure his body was trapped underwater and he would never be found.”

Hank desperately tried to compose himself, but felt his life slipping away, along with Roberta.  Maybe, just maybe, he could still pull off his escape before Haynes showed up and made an allegation against him, or tried to kill him.  Haynes reappearing gave him even more reason to run.  His worrying over Haynes was justified.

“Where is Haynes now?”

“He’s here, in Germany.  They called me from Bremerhaven this morning.  He was on the next ship that left from Galveston three weeks after we did.  I would have thought he’d be reassigned stateside, but apparently he was so determined to be reassigned to his unit they agreed to let him come—what a guy!”

Yeah some guy.  Hank thought to himself.  He’s after me!

“He’s been in Bremerhaven for a few days while they figured out how to put us together.  Damned Army doesn’t know one hand from the other.  He’ll be here this afternoon.  I asked that he be assigned to work with us.”

Hank couldn’t believe what he heard.  Haynes coming to Hamburg now—to work with them?   If Stein agreed that he be assigned to work with them, then Haynes must not have made any accusations against him.  Hank sensed an opportunity he had to grab before it was too late.

“You know, Stein, Haynes and I had our problems.”

“Yes, I know, but those were under different circumstances.  I know you both pretty well, and I like you both.  You’re the kind of men I need, so I think it’s worth a try.  Anyway, I already put the paperwork through, that’s why Haynes is on his way here now.”

Hank had to act fast, he could see his chances getting slim. Stein had no idea how dangerous Haynes was, and Hank was near desperation.

“Stein, with Haynes coming in later, I’d better go after Roberta now so we can put pressure on her to talk.  The sooner the better, while she’s upset.  We don’t want to give her time to calm down and put a story together for us.”

“That’s why I like you, Hank, You’re always thinking.  You’ll make a good officer someday.  You are right.  Go after her and I’ll be ready when you get back.  It’s 0815 now, so let’s say you get her back here by 0945.  Now go.”

Hank prayed that Stein wouldn’t see the monstrous sigh of relief he muffled as he headed for the door.

He was exhilarated as he walked to the motor pool where a security guard was waiting to drive him to the camp and retrieve Roberta.  He felt like he was in the clear.

“Good morning, are you the man who’s driving me out to the camp this morning?”

“That I am, Corporal.  Are you alone?  I have Captain Stein here on the manifest.”

“Yes.  Captain Stein sent me.  I’ll be going alone.”

“Hold on a minute, I’ll have to call over there and get that directly from him.  You aren’t on the manifest.”

The wind went out of his sails a little.  Every little glitch could be fatal, he thought, while he told himself not to worry—it’s just routine.  While the call was being made, Hank thought of another strategy that was worth trying.

“Ok, Fischer, we’re good to go.  Hop in.”

“Say, I know the way out there.  There’s no need to have both of us go.  I’m perfectly capable of securing a small woman on my own.”

“Sorry, can’t do.  Procedure you know.”

“Well I thought it was worth asking.  Let’s go.”

It was just past 0830 when they approached the burned farmhouse about half way to the camp.  Hank was getting more anxious with every minute that passed, thinking of seeing Roberta and how surprised she might be to see him.  He thought he would have to get a signal to her so she wouldn’t look happy to see him and raise suspicion.  He worried that Max wouldn’t be in the woods, but as they approached, Hank was in the passenger seat in the front and caught a glimpse of Max tucked into the woods, out of sight if you weren’t looking right at him.  His heart began to race—everything seemed to be working as planned.  Hank put his hand out the window and up over the roof where the driver couldn’t see him give Max an assuring wave.

At the camp, Hank stopped the driver as they walked into the security building where Roberta was held.

“Say, I think it would be a good idea if I went into the room by myself for a minute.  She’s very upset about being detained and I’ve met with her a couple days and I think I have her trust.  She will probably be a lot calmer if I go in to get her.”

“Sounds reasonable to me.  Suit yourself.  I don’t need any trouble.  I’ll be right out here.”

Hank knocked and opened the door slowly so he could see where she was.  When he spotted her he put his hand up as if to say, quiet, quiet, be careful.  He spoke firmly as those outside might expect him to, while mixing in instructions under his breath.

“Act like you’ve never seen me before.  Trust me, do as I say.”

Roberta quickly caught on and played her part well, in a demanding, yet womanly tone.

“Where are you taking me?  What are you doing?  You have no right to keep me!”

“Just settle down, lady, it will go a lot easier on you if you just cooperate.  No one wants to hurt you.  Come along, we’re going for a ride.”

Then under his breath, he whispered.  “When I say, ‘We certainly bombed the living hell out of this place’ make a big point about having a bathroom emergency, like you’ve got to stop immediately.  Go behind the burned out farmhouse.  I’ll give you a couple minutes then I’ll let you know what to do after that.  Be prepared to run.  Just follow me when I say go.”

With Roberta in the front passenger seat, they headed back down the road toward the farmhouse.  Just as he planned, Hank said, “We certainly bombed the living hell out of this place.”  Immediately Roberta acted like she had a horrible stomach cramp and demanded the driver to stop at the farmhouse that was approaching on the left.  Of course he did what any gentlemen would have done.  He stopped in front of the farmhouse, situated perhaps 75 yards or so from the road.  Roberta jumped out, playing her role to a “T”.  Hank was right behind her.

“I’ll keep an eye on her…well, I don’t mean that really, I mean I’ll stand watch so she doesn’t pull anything funny.”

The driver was amused and stretched back against his seat, unsuspecting.  Hank was pleased—one more step successfully executed.

Hank could hardly walk a straight line, he was so nervous.  His heart banged against his chest and sweat beaded on his forehead.  He could see Max tucked into the woods.  He moved closer to the edge, straining to get a glimpse of Roberta…and then the driver saw Max too.

“Hey!  What’s going on?  There’s someone in the woods!”  He jumped out of the truck.

“Go!  Go! Roberta!”  Hank ran behind the house and took her arm.  Seeing them take off, Max roared toward them.  In seconds they were in the sidecar and  sped away toward the back of the farm as the driver ran to the truck.  Once he was sure they were secure in the motorcycle, Hank looked back and to his amazement, the driver was turning onto the farm, giving chase.

“Go, Max!  Go!  He’s coming after us.”

Hank didn’t expect this.  He didn’t think anyone would care enough to want to go after them, particularly not a driver.  He yelled a few distasteful words in his direction that were quickly swallowed up by the roar of the motorcycle.  Within half a mile, the old farm road Max had found narrowed to a livestock path not more than five or six feet wide between two wooden fences strung with barbed wire, just enough room to get the motorcycle through, but not enough for a truck.  A couple hundred yards down the path and Max slowed and angled the cycle enough to see the truck stopped where the road narrowed and they all let out a laugh, more out of relief than anything.  The driver had done them a favor, really, it would be just that much longer before he got back to headquarters.  By that time they would be safe in Richard’s apartment.

Max looked down at Roberta with the sweetest, softest, most endearing look Hank had ever seen, and said, “Hold on, Berta!  We’ll stop up ahead when we’re out of sight and I’ll squeeze you like there’s no tomorrow!”

It was an odd place to find Kara Chandler, at an odd time: a squalid alley in the armpit of Atlanta, nearly midnight. The air sweltered like August—code orange, said the news, with dramatic warnings for asthma sufferers and the elderly to stay inside—and here, in an alley off Vine Street, the odors of urine and smog and rotten trash clung to every surface like a film.

Luke Varón inched to his left, peering past a Dumpster to the sidewalk. An odd place indeed for Kara Chandler, yet there she was, looking nothing like he’d expected. The heels were gone, her normally businesslike bun now falling in gold waves over her shoulders. In place of the usual classic suit, she wore jeans and a short-sleeved blouse, and instead of a fashionable purse, a shapeless macramé sack hung over one shoulder with her right hand buried deep inside.

Gun.

“Mr. Varón?”

Her voice stroked the night and every fiber of Luke’s body tightened. Damn, he shouldn’t be here. In two days, eight-and-a-half tons of cocaine would arrive, and with it, frank Collado. Luke had spent the last week securing the route from Colombia. He’d returned to the States a few hours ago, longing only for a clean bed and about sixteen hours to languish in it.

What he’d found was a message from Kara Chandler: Assistant District Attorney for Fulton County and Andrew Chandler’s wife. As either identity, she could threaten the security of the shipment. As both, she was downright dangerous.

“Mr. Varón?” she said again.

Luke strung the silence out another inch then said, “Here.”

She whirled, a bulge forming in the canvas of her bag. “Where? Come out, damn it.”

He did, leading with a G18. Her gaze dropped and he watched the details of the weapon register in her eyes: a lightweight, 9mm shooter with a threaded barrel to accommodate a silencer, and just now sporting an extra magazine that held thirty-three rounds. Tonight, he’d added the extra clip just for show, but in fully-automatic mode, the G18 could fire all thirty-three bullets in less than two seconds. It was legal only among law enforcement and the military.

Luke Varón was neither.

He didn’t know what she was carrying, but it didn’t take her long to determine she was out-classed. The bulge in the bag slackened.

Luke tipped his Glock skyward. “Your turn,” he said, but Kara Chandler didn’t move. “Lady, pull your fucking hand out. I’d hate to fill you with bullets and then learn you were going for lipstick.”

An inch at a time, she withdrew her hand—empty. Luke lifted the edge of his Armani suit coat and tucked his gun in the holster. He took two steps to his left so when she angled to keep her eyes on him, the frail light caught her face. Not that he needed any reminders what she looked like: hair the color of sunlight, bottle-green eyes dulled by tragedy, pale skin with two, teasing little tucks in her cheeks that flashed like lightning when she was angry and perhaps—Luke could only speculate here—when she smiled. Without her heels, she stood only a few inches above five feet, but she carried herself as if meeting him eye to eye.

On her turf, in a courtroom trying to convict him of murder, for example, Kara Chandler was the definition of cold control. Out here, she was wired so tight Luke thought she might snap if she so much as took a deep breath.

“You called?” Luke asked.

“Yes,” she said, but beneath the steel nerves, Luke caught a quaver in her voice. “I have a proposition for you.”

Luke feigned delight. “Now, what could a faithful public servant like you want with a common criminal like me?”

“I want to hire you,” she said, and he almost blinked. He caught himself and arched a dark brow instead.

“I’m not a stockbroker or private chef, Ms. Chandler.”

“I know what you are. You’re a drug cartel hit man, an arsonist and cold-blooded killer. So this job should be right up your alley. I want you to blow up a boat and make sure its owners die in the fire.”

Luke was flabbergasted. Christ. “Why me?”

“Because you can get away with it. You proved that when you walked out of court a month ago. You can get away with anything.”

“Flattery,” he said. “But you must know dozens of good criminals.”

Her gaze might have melted steel. “Besides you, the criminals I know are behind bars.”

“Ah, yes,” Luke said, letting the hint of a smile show. “You aren’t accustomed to a checkmark in the LOSS column. I’m sorry I tarnished your record.”

She took a step toward him. “It wasn’t a loss, it was a mistrial. You should be in prison for the rest of your life.”

“Lucky for you I’m not. Who would you call to commit your felonies?” He cocked his head. “Is the District Attorney really so desperate that he’s sending you into dark alleys?”

“I told you, this is personal.”

“Prove it.”

“Excuse me?”

He skimmed down her blouse buttons. “Show me you aren’t wearing a wire.”

Her eyes blazed, but Luke could see that she was thinking about it. Considering stripping her clothes in a lonely, dark alley with a hit man for the Rojàs cartel, just to prove she wasn’t wired. Proof enough, Luke thought, and couldn’t quite believe his eyes when her fingers rose to her blouse and the first disk slipped through the hole. Jesus, she was going to do it. He felt like a twelve-year-old who’d just stumbled on a Playboy on a magazine under a mattress, watching her cleavage and the upper swells of her breasts come into view, her flat, pale belly revealed an inch at a time. His blood drained from his brain as she slid the blouse from her arms and let it drop to the pavement with her bag.

You don’t have to do this. The words rose to mind but didn’t make it past his lips. She unzipped her jeans and shimmied the denim over her hips—an unconsciously seductive move from any woman in any circumstance, and almost unbearably so in the heat of night with a woman of Kara Chandler’s lithe curves and unexpected mystique. Luke’s mouth went dry and she stepped from the jeans, then straightened and squared her shoulders.

The notion of sixteen hours in bed took an unexpected turn. Luke swallowed and took his time looking. Long, slender limbs and gently flaring hips, lace-edged underwear cut high enough and low enough to accentuate soft curves usually encased in power-suits. Her breasts strained against pale satin cups, and Luke’s fingers curled into fists with the desire to trade the bra for his hands.

“Satisfied?” she asked.

“Hardly,” Luke said, with more honesty than he intended. He stepped toward her, noting a trickle of perspiration trail between her breasts even as a shiver drew her nipples tight. “You and I both know transmission devices can be almost imperceptible, except upon close inspection.” He circled around her, stopping at her back to brush a hand beneath her hair and lift it from her shoulders, fanning his fingers through the waves. A sweet scent rose to his nostrils from the pulse point on her throat, an incongruous touch of elegance in the fetid alley.

But there were no electronics. If she was wearing a wire, it was installed someplace that would require exploration to find. That thought sent a surge of blood against his zipper, but a wave of anger flowed right behind it. Kara Chandler was no blushing virgin. She was a widow and a mother, an Assistant District Attorney in a major metropolis, a woman who’d taken Luke to court once for murder.

And she was playing a game. Luke didn’t like games when he didn’t know the rules.

He coiled the mass of gold around his hand and tightened the slack, tipping her head back to expose a pale stretch of throat. “You think it’s a good idea, presenting yourself to me like this? Perhaps you don’t know what I’m capable of.”

“I know exactly what you’re capable of,” she said, through clenched teeth. “It’s the reason I called you. And I’m fully aware that you have Gene Montiel’s resources at your disposal, and that you can disappear on a moment’s notice to a nation without extradition. But understand that if I am murdered here tonight, nothing short of that will keep you from being arrested.”

Luke tightened his grip on her hair, pulling her nearly-naked frame against him. “Murder wasn’t what I had in mind,” he whispered. A bit of bald truth in a tangle of lies. He waited for a shiver of fear, but instead she jerked away, teeth bared.

“Do it, then.”

Luke stared.

“You think I don’t know what kind of man you are? That I didn’t know before I came here what you might demand?” Her voice vibrated with anger, maybe even with disgust, but at the same time, tears bloomed in her eyes. “Your mistake is in thinking I care,” she shot. “If sex is the currency you want, then get it over with. It’s hot out here and it stinks.”

Warning bells went off. Walk away. A tumble with Kara Chandler wasn’t worth losing the shipment. Or Frank Collado.

Walk away.

Luke stepped back, scooped her clothes from the ground and fired them at her chest. “Count yourself lucky that I’m partial to brunettes,” he said, but didn’t bother turning away while she hurried back into her clothes. He tried not to notice the sense of loss in his gut as she covered herself, tried not to wonder what—besides a set-up—would drive a woman of the law to such extremes as to try to hire a hit.

That thought was more than Luke could ignore. She bent down to pick up her bag and just before she would have walked away, he stopped her with his voice. “Ms. Chandler,” he said, “you never told me: Whose boat and whose death?”

She looked him straight in the eyes. “Mine.”

CHAPTER ONE
Later, Lily would remember the early morning quiet, the shuttered shops in the narrow lanes of the Old City. She would remember that few people were in the streets — bearded Hassidim in fur-trimmed hats and prayer shawls over long black cloaks returning from morning prayer at the Wailing Wall; an occasional shopkeeper sweeping worn cobbles still damp with dew.

She would remember the empty bazaar, remember that the peddler who usually sold round Greek bread from his cart near Jaffa Gate was gone.

She would remember the crowd of young Arabs, their heads covered with checkered black and white kefiyas, waiting in the shade of the Grand New Hotel, leaning against the façade, sitting on window ledges near the entrance; remember them crowded under Jaffa Gate in a space barely wide enough to drive through with a cart, standing beneath the medieval arches and crenellated ramparts, faces glum, arms crossed against their chests, rifles slung across their backs, revolvers jammed into their belts. One wore a Bedouin knife, its tin scabbard encrusted with bright bits of broken glass. Only their eyes moved as they watched her pass. Lily remembered holding her breath, pushing her way through, feeling their body heat, snaking this way and that to avoid touching the damp sweat on their clothing. No one stepped out of her way.

She would remember the bright Jerusalem air, fresh with the smell of pines and coffee and the faint tang of sheep from the fields near the city wall; the empty fruit market, usually crowded with loaded camels and donkey carts and turbaned fellahin unloading produce, deserted and silent. Vendor’s stalls, looking like boarded shops on a forlorn winter boardwalk, shut; cabs and carriages gone from the taxi stand.

She would remember the pool at the YMCA, warm as tea and green with algae, and the ladies gliding slowly through the water, wearing shower caps and corsets under their bathing suits, scooping water onto their ample bosoms, gathering to gossip at the shallow end. She would remember swimming around them with steady strokes, her legs kicking rhythmically, and the terrible tempered Mrs. Klein, blowing like a whale, ordering Lily to stop splashing. A tiny lady holding onto the side of the pool and dunking herself up and down like a tea bag nodded in agreement; Elsa Stern, the little round pediatrician with curly gray hair, gave Lily a conspiratorial wink and kept swimming laps.

She would remember it all. Everything about that day would haunt her.

###

Lily Sampson was on her way to the new YMCA on Julian’s Way that morning, to catalogue pottery from the Clarke collection in the little museum being built in the Observation Tower.

She had stayed at the YMCA four years ago when it first opened in 1934 and reveled in its splendor, in its graceful proportions, in its arches and tiled decoration, its tennis courts and gardens, and the grand Moorish lobby paved with Spanish tiles. It had a restaurant, an auditorium where Toscanini played, and a swimming pool — the only one in Jerusalem. Tourists came to ooh and ah and told her this was the most beautiful YMCA in the world. They would climb the Observation Tower for a view of the city and look through telescopes into windows of apartments on Mamilla Street and Jaffa Road.

Lily went there to use the swimming pool three times a week when she was in Jerusalem, walking from the American School through the quiet lanes of the Musrara quarter, or cutting through the Old City.

At five minutes to nine, her hair still damp against her ears, her eyes stinging from chlorine, Lily climbed the six flights to where the little museum would be.

Sheets of glass and wooden shelving for cases were stacked against the wall in the corner of a large, bare room that held only an old table, two wooden chairs, pottery wrapped in newspapers and stowed on the floor in old grocery cartons, and a wall clock that said four minutes before nine.

Eastbourne had said he would be here around nine o’clock. Lily suspected that if Eastbourne agreed to help her today, he had reasons of his own. She was grateful that he recommended her for this job, grateful for the small windfall from cataloguing pottery during the short break in excavations at Tel el Kharub.

Lily stepped onto the balcony that opened off the museum, holding her breath at the sight of Jerusalem, creamy gold in the morning brightness. The great gilded cupola of the Dome of the Rock glinted in the sun. The Old City, its stone walls adorned with towers and battlements, steeples and minarets, loomed behind the King David Hotel.

She could see the crowd of grim-faced young Arabs she had passed this morning at Jaffa Gate, now grown to two hundred or more. The tops of their heads bobbled like so many black and white beach balls.

Smoke twisted from small fires in the Valley of Hinnom. Lily looked through the telescope toward Government House on the crest of the Hill of Evil Council. She could just make out the Union Jack, flopping limply from its tower.

In the street, a dapper American tourist in a Panama hat and seersucker suit came out of the King David across the way.

The ladies left the YMCA one by one — Mrs. Klein, still frowning, her hair pulled back tightly in a bun, marched down the street; Dr. Stern walked toward the corner.

Lily heard Eastbourne enter the museum. “Let’s get to work.” He looked at his watch. “I don’t have much time.”

Full of his usual charm this morning, she thought. “I was watching for you,” Lily told him. “I didn’t see you in the street.”

“I had breakfast downstairs.”

“You actually ate here?”

“I was hungry for some good English cooking and a real breakfast.”

Of course you were, Lily thought. Good British housewives get up early every morning to cool the toast and put lumps in the porridge.

“You don’t have a cook at the British School?”

“He’s an Arab. This morning I had ham and eggs.”

Lily noticed the newspaper under his arm and twisted her head to read the headlines. Eastbourne folded it into a small packet and put it in his pocket.

“I haven’t finished with the paper,” he said, looked out at the street, and checked his watch again.

On the wall clock, it was exactly 9:00 a.m.

The sound of an explosion from somewhere in West Jerusalem rocked the air.

After a tick of silence, a shout of “Allah Akbar” erupted in a fullthroated roar from the crowd gathered at Jaffa Gate.

Lily rushed to the balcony, with Eastbourne close behind her. A mob spewed out of the Old City, propelled by the rhythmic chant, onto Mamilla and around the King David Hotel, and spread in a torrent toward West Jerusalem.

Five or six men carrying rifles ran down Julian’s Way and encircled a truck, rocking it back and forth until it turned over. At first the impassioned madness and destruction seemed strangely distant to Lily, choreographed and rehearsed, like a slow-moving pageant. She watched three men rush from the gas station at the turn of the road with full jerry cans, spilling gasoline on the street as they ran.

Waving fists, brandishing rifles, kefiyas flying in the wind, the horde swarmed into the warren of back streets with old Jewish shops and houses, down Jaffa Road toward Zion Circus. The blare of sirens, scattered shouts and screams carried from the direction of West Jerusalem on wind heavy with smoke.

Lily heard the crash of shattering glass and looked toward Mamilla to see a man with a jerry can splash gasoline through a shop window. A rumble of flames erupted and danced in the currents of heat from the rush of the blaze.

“It’s that bloody Grand Mufti, el Husseini,” Eastbourne said. His nostrils dilated with anger, and he wiped his hand across his mouth. “You can’t trust him. He must be orchestrating this from Syria, with the backing of Hitler and his crowd.”

The tourist from the King David, his back arched in a posture of fear, stood in the middle of the street now, tilted this way and that by rioters who swirled around him as if he were a lamppost. Eastbourne watched from the doorway, looking toward the tourist in the Panama hat, and glanced at his watch again.

Mrs. Klein advanced on the rabble like a tank, shouting and flailing her arms. The mob surrounded her while she punched and kicked and screamed. They pressed against her, pushing her back onto the road. She floated to her knees, her skirt billowing around her, falling to the asphalt, her hair undone and sticky with blood that began to puddle on the pavement.

Dr. Stern turned back, hurrying toward her friend splayed on the sidewalk. A man careened to face Dr. Stern, stepping into her path, thrusting a fist in her direction as if to greet her. Her eyes widened, her mouth opened, and she staggered against him. He pushed her away and slowly, carefully, she plummeted straight down, silent, onto the sidewalk. Lily closed her eyes and turned away from the balcony back to the notebook on the table, back to the comfort of the past to count clay lamps, juglets, burnished bowls with turned-back rims. She picked up a lamp, the nozzle smudged with ancient soot, and put it down again, drawn back to the balcony with a horrified fascination.
The tourist in the seersucker suit, without his Panama hat, disappeared into the revolving door of the hotel.

“Get inside,” Eastbourne said. “This isn’t a peep show.” He looked at the street. “When this is over, they’ll cover the bodies, take them away, and hose down the streets.”

What will be left in two thousand years, Lily wondered? Just a thin layer of charcoal, without memory, without skeletons to mark the day, just one more level in the stratigraphy of Jerusalem?

People hung out the windows of the King David Hotel, one man with field glasses, others leaning against balcony railings, some aghast, some curious. A father led his small daughter inside, shut the door and pulled down the blinds.

The tourist in the seersucker suit was gone now.

Dr. Stern lay on her side in the street. Little rivulets of blood seeped from beneath her, flowing downhill and staining the pale blue cloth of her skirt. The little tea bag lady lay stretched out on the steps of the YMCA as if she were sleeping in the wrong place.

Mrs. Klein lay in a widening dark pool, her hair, beginning to mat with blood, loose and wild against the asphalt. She looked oddly peaceful, her frown gone, her jaw fallen open in death. False teeth lay beside her softened cheek. A man stopped, looked at the teeth on the sticky pavement, picked them up, wiped the blood on his sleeve, and put them in his pocket. He pulled a knife from his belt and, brandishing it, ran on toward Mamilla.

“The name Jerusalem means City of Peace, you know,” Eastbourne said. Shuddering, Lily edged back to the table. The haze of smoke from the fires, the blare of fire trucks, the sounds of sirens from ambulances, of sobs, of wounded and mourners, of shutters ringing down with a clatter, penetrated the room. Lily was drawn to the balcony, and back inside to the table, too mesmerized to stop, too terrified to watch, mourning for the ladies who would never again skim across the green water, for Canaanites and Jebusites, for Israelites and Judeans, for Crusaders and Mamelukes who fought in this city with its twisted streets, its strange mystique and power, its heritage of blood and vengeance.

“Go downstairs and get me a packet of Players,” Eastbourne said, reaching into his pocket. “Here are fifty mils. Bring me the change.”

Lily dropped the money when he held it out. Her fingers numb and shaking, she picked it up slowly. “Sorry. I wasn’t looking,” she said and turned toward the door.

In the lobby, the desk clerk looked at her dumbly, his eyes glazed, his face pale. A bushy mustache hid his mouth and quivered when he spoke.

“Rioting in the streets and you ask for cigarettes,” he said in a hushed monotone. “Cigarettes? Are you mad?”

“Players,” Lily repeated.

“I don’t sell them here. In the dining room.”

Lily went into the dining room. The desk clerk followed and placed himself behind the bar.

“Players,” Lily said again and put the money on the counter. He counted it and pushed back the change. “You cold-blooded English. You have no feelings. Here are your cigarettes.”

“I’m an American.”

“Crazy American. You’re all the same.”

Lily climbed the stairs, catching her breath at the landings, looking down empty halls at laundry carts stacked with fresh linens for unmade beds. She felt heat from hidden pipes radiate through the whitewashed walls, heard the elevator knock and clatter as it moved from floor to floor.

On the sixth floor, the museum was silent. The notebook was still open on the table; the clay lamp was where she had put it down. And Eastbourne was gone.

INTRODUCTION

Behind the Song

I grew up in a single-parent home with a single mother and six siblings—therein lay the crux of my problems. Too few people know the devastating long-term effects that can ravage the life of a child raised without a father—or at least a good father figure. I had no uncles—my mother was an only child—and my father had two sisters but no brothers.

When I was five years old, we moved from an apartment building to a two-family house. There was a young, childless couple, John and Mary, who lived on the second floor. I often visited them, and they played with me every day.

One day Mary went to the hospital to deliver their first child. I had come to think of them as an aunt and uncle, so it was not strange to me when John invited me up to their apartment to have cookies and milk. I innocently allowed him to lead me into the bedroom, where he proceeded to lift me onto the bed and remove my panties. As he began to molest me, I looked up at him and said, “My mommy’s not gonna like this!”

He responded angrily: “Your mother’s not gonna know!”

“Yes, she will, cuz I’ll tell her,” I timidly said.

At that he hurriedly replaced my panties, snatched me from the bed, and dragged me to the front door of the apartment, where he shoved me out with a growl: “Git on back downstairs. You make me sick.” Looking back on it now, I think he probably meant, “You make me scared.”

My mother was a no-nonsense, take-no-crap-from-anyone kind of person, and John knew it. Because of that, I never told her what happened that day. I believed she would probably have hurt him seriously, which would have meant jail time and that I would be left without a mother as well as a father. I had no way of realizing then that John had stolen my innocence that afternoon and had reinforced the low self-esteem and abandonment issues I already suffered, born of fatherlessness.

Fatherlessness, coupled with this incident, set the stage for my behavior in male relationships from then on. I grew up feeling that every rejection or maltreatment from any man for any reason was because I wasn’t worthy of better treatment. When I was twelve, my mother had a relationship with a man she grew to love. For two years she kept him away from my siblings and me, so as not to have someone around who might, in some way, harm her daughters. Eventually he came to live with us, and we grew to like him a lot. He was a father figure—until one day he sexually molested me while I was asleep in my bedroom and my mother was asleep in hers.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked as I awoke.

“I was just trying to see if you were messing with those little boys,” he answered.

“You could have asked me that,” I snapped back.

I stopped him before he had gone too far, but the damage to my psyche had already been done. Again I didn’t tell my mom, even though her greatest fear had come to pass. I had seen her alone and lonely for years, and I didn’t want to get in the way of her happiness with the man she loved. I also didn’t want her to get into trouble for trying to seek retribution against him.

The incidents with my stepfather and John, as well as my reactions to them, set the tone for my future relationships with men and became par for the course. I ended up being rejected, disrespected, and neglected in every relationship, from puberty up to and including my marriage. When I was eighteen, I was naïve enough to trust the cousin of an ex-boyfriend. I allowed him to take me to visit his girlfriend—only to find that not only was she not home, there was no one there at all. He raped me. “Don’t even think of screaming,” he threatened. “No one else is here, no one will hear you, and you will only piss me off. So, act like you like it!”

When I got home that night, I went straight to the bathroom and tried to scrub away the guilt and shame I felt. It did not work. I never told anyone about it because, again, I didn’t want anyone to get in trouble for trying to defend me. Legal recourse never crossed my mind. Again, I just considered it all par for the course.

When I met my husband, Linwood, I thought he was my knight in shining armor. He was handsome, intelligent, gallant, chivalrous, generous, and so much fun. After two years I made him my manager. As artist/girlfriend and manager/boyfriend, our relationship was great for two years that was followed by a not-so-terrific one.

In the midst of my trouble in paradise, I received a notice from my record company. For no apparent reason, they were not renewing my recording contract, which would expire at the end of the year.

One night, at one of my shows, I had an accident onstage and woke up the next morning paralyzed from the waist down. I ended up in the hospital for spinal surgery. People were going around the record company saying, “The Queen is dead.” Was I simply a one-hit wonder with “Never Can Say Goodbye”? During the three-month hospital stay that followed, God got my attention. Gripped with fear of abandonment, physical handicap, and showbiz obscurity, I reached out to Him for help.

True to form, the Lord didn’t fail me. Within a year I had a massive hit with “I Will Survive,” and Linwood and I were married. Like so many innocent women, I thought, now that we’re married, things will be different; our focus will be on building a happy family together. I wasn’t the perfect wife, but I was attentive, trusting, reassuring, supportive, affectionate, loving, caring, and faithful. Linwood wasn’t all that bad as a husband. He was supportive as far as my career was concerned—physically protective and affectionate. But he took disrespect and disregard to a whole new level. I think he became so self-absorbed that he didn’t care if he was being hurtful to me. He had no concept of commitment and thought a grown man should be free to do whatever he wanted, stay out all night as many nights as he liked—so he did. It’s enough to say, as I often do, that I stayed at that party way too long.

What Linwood didn’t count on was the impact of “I Will Survive” and how much it would do for me. When I recorded the song, I thought of it concerning the courage it produced in me regarding my career, my mom’s passing, and the surgery I’d just had, and how it would encourage and inspire other people as well.

Now it became my mantra. It guided me in holding on to my faith and trusting God to bring me victoriously through all my trials and tribulations. I learned that internal scars—like those caused by fatherlessness, my stepfather, my ex-boyfriend’s cousin, and Linwood—put holes in your soul. Those scars can be just as deep as physical ones. They are just as painful and damaging, and generally hurt longer and are more debilitating. It took a while, but I grew strong, and I truly learned how to get along. My courage grew, and I began to recognize my own strength and the power God had placed in me. I spent several more years trying to make my marriage successful. But, as I told my husband on several occasions, “The problem with pushing a person to her limit is that no one knows what her limit is until she reaches it, and then it’s too late.”

Indeed, it became too late. I had reached my limit and came to the conclusion I couldn’t make the marriage work on my own and it was time to end it. My husband had taken up permanent residence in the state of denial and it was time for me to make a move as well. When I told my pastor I was getting a divorce, he asked me how I felt about it. After a long pause, I said, “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!”

I never missed Linwood because, to tell the truth, he had left me years before the divorce. But it was great getting to know the new me, the me so many abusive men had caused to hide deep down inside. Well, she’s out now. I love her, and God loves her, and she’ll never go into hiding again.

Indeed, I will survive.

…

In the following pages, you will find compelling stories that will likely mirror the experiences of yourself, family members, friends, and acquaintances. They are real-life stories of real people who valiantly climbed mountains of seemingly insurmountable obstacles to reach the pinnacle of triumph.

This book came about in a special way. My team—Sue Carswell, Stephanie Gold (my manager), and I—put out the word across the world that we were looking for survival stories for this book. We eventually received stories from as far away as Africa—including one story of a woman who was encamped in Auschwitz, another from a 9/11 mother, and the story of an autistic boy ordering flowers for his mother for Mother’s Day. We contacted blogs and writing magazines and reached out to various organizations that had members’ stories depicting the true essence of the song. Several of these groups included healing resources for abused women and men. It seems we used every connection we could find. Some in this book are even our friends’ stories. In the end we narrowed it down to forty stories we felt best illuminated the lyrics of my song. They vary in dimension, but I am very proud of each and every contributor for making this book come true.

My sincere hope is that these stories will provide inspiration, encouragement, and empowerment to you—no matter what challenges you might be facing. If the remarkable people in these stories can survive as I did, I know you can too!

Several of the younger garrison lads had tried to court her, wooing her with pretty words, gifts of woven cloth, and once—or so he’d heard—an armful of loveliest heather. Talk among the men was that she pretended not to hear the compliments, passed on the cloth to young mothers who needed it more, and placed the heather on graves of Duncreag’s fallen.

A few more persistent lads claimed she’d declined their attentions by saying her heart belonged to another.

And that she’d gazed wistfully into the distance when telling them so.

The lads said she looked toward Ireland.

Grim was sure she did. He was also certain the young man who held her affection ached for her as well.

It was a notion that pierced him to the core.

No saint, he swore beneath his breath, his blood heating all the same. Passion raged, fierce and demanding as he held her fast, claiming her lips with a bold roughness he just couldn’t help.

She was in his arms now.

And she tasted sweeter than the nectar of the gods.

When she lifted up on her toes and parted her lips to flick the tip of her tongue against his own, his agony was complete. Never before had a woman returned his kiss with such ardor. He believed most lasses feared him, big and rough-hewn as he was, without courtly manners. Breena was an angel beyond compare, a prize so rare he was stunned to have her in his arms, so soft and pliant.

He didn’t want to desire her.

Someday her Irish lover—if he’d survived the raid on her village—would ride up to Duncreag’s gates to claim her, taking her back across the sea. Grim certainly would if she were his. And he doubted Donegal men were any less possessive. He shouldn’t lay a finger on her.

Yet she set him aflame.

Knowing he was leaping into an abyss he could never escape, he nipped the lush curve of her lower lip and then deepened the kiss, letting his tongue glide into the soft velvet-warmth of her mouth. She kissed him back, her own tongue tangling with his, tantalizing and intimate, making him forget every reason he shouldn’t be touching her.

He pulled her closer, not caring. He shut his mind to the hurtful truth. That every time he thought she’d glanced his way, she quickly looked elsewhere. Indeed, she didn’t pay heed to any of the men at Duncreag. Not even bonnie younger lads so much more appealing than him.

Grim bit back a growl, not wanting to think of her yearning for an Inishowen lad in Donegal. Perhaps imagining such a lad now held her. Yet she was soft and warm in his arms. Her lips so yielding, her glossy tresses a spill of cool silk across his cheek, the dance of her tongue bewitching him. She even made a little mewing sound, responding eagerly as she returned the kiss.

What man could resist such temptation?

He surely couldn’t.

Back in the carriage, where she was hiding from the weather while Evan secured their rooms at the inn, Amelia sighed. Though she’d tried to be polite with him for the past hour, she’d been stewing in inner turmoil the whole time.

He was insanely handsome. More handsome than she remembered, and she’d already remembered him as the handsomest boy she’d ever known. His proximity did all sorts of wicked things to her body, made her skin feel sensitive and achy, and an intense erotic need furled between her legs. Everything about him called to her on a most carnal level, from the way he spoke to her to the hardness of his body to the rugged planes of his face, and her desire had grown ever stronger as the miles had rolled beneath the wheels of the carriage.

But her body didn’t know what her mind did—he was also the cruelest boy she’d ever known. He’d pretended to admire her, but in reality he’d scorned her behind her back. After she’d discovered that, she’d struggled for years with her self-confidence. Even now, after years of people admiring her beauty publicly, she sometimes still looked in the mirror and saw the pudgy, unattractive girl that Evan Cameron had seen for so many years.

She’d resolved herself to spending another few hours with him in his carriage, then escaping to Cheltham House, hopefully not having to see him again before she returned to London next month. But now they were stranded in Postcombe, and politeness would dictate he dine with her and ensure her comfort at the inn, then break his fast with her in the morning before the additional two-hour—or longer, with snow on the road—drive to her father’s house. Which meant more interaction with him than she thought she could bear.

She took a deep breath. She would bear it. First of all, she had no choice. Secondly, she was no simpering maiden. Not anymore.

It was what it was. Neither of them could control the weather. She would endure this with as good a nature as she could muster.

Evan slipped into the carriage beside her, his frown even deeper than it had been before. He wrestled with the wind over the door, finally gaining control and slamming it shut, before turning to her and saying in a low voice, “They haven’t any rooms.”

Her eyes went wide. “What? Why not?”

“The Duke of Dunsberg and his entourage were on their way to Oxford, and they were caught in the storm as well. They’ve taken all the available rooms.”

“Oh no.”

“The innkeeper did offer us lodgings, however…” Evan continued hesitantly. He took a breath. “It’s not a room so much as a closet. But they’ve an extra bed they can put in there for us.”

“Ah,” she said quietly.

Finally, he met her gaze. “I fear this is our only option. I will sleep on the floor, of course. I would not…er…take advantage of the situation in any way. I give you my word.”

Could this day get any worse? Amelia stifled a groan. She wasn’t worried about Evan not being a gentleman; she was far, far more worried about herself not being a lady. Lord knew what a fool she’d made of herself in his proximity in the past. And the way her body was responding to him…she felt like a giant magnet inexorably drawn to his compelling force. Her skin was prickly and hot, aching all over. And something told her that only his touch could soothe that kind of pain.

“You’re not serious.”

Carponti turned around, his shoulders covered in flecks of red hair. “What?”

Nicole grinned as she leaned against the door. “Garrison is going to kill you.”

“Garrison is going to love my new hair cut. It looks just like his.”

Nicole arched one blond eyebrow. “Except for the bright red fuzzy patch in the center of your head.”

Carponti shrugged and rubbed his hands over his freshly shorn scalp. “I can’t wait to see what the sergeant major says.”

“Isn’t he going to be mad?”

Carponti brushed the hair off his neck. “We’re going to war. My hair isn’t on the list of things he’s going to worry about.”

Nicole looked down at the pile of hair on the floor and sighed. “Then why do it?”

Carponti smirked. “Because it’ll get a rise out of him and I live to make his blood pressure go up.”

She laughed. “You need a hobby. Other than blowing things up.”

He sidled across the room and hooked his thumb into the waist of her jeans and tugged her close until their hips met. “I have a hobby. Keeping you well satisfied.”

She sniffed but her lips curled at the edges. “You’re going to be derelict in your duties for a while.”

“But I’ll be home soon enough and then I’ll make up for it.”

“I think I’m going to need a deployment boyfriend.”

He grinned wickedly. “Did you already get one?” He backed her up against the wall, his body hard against hers. God but she loved this man. “Can I see it?”

A slow flush crept over her face and she tried to look away. He threaded his fingers with hers and lifted her arms over her head. Her back arched with the movement.

“Please?” he whispered against her lips. “That would be an awesome memory to take with me downrange. Just think of me, alone in the middle of the desert. One visual of you with your deployment boyfriend and it could make a lonely night go by so much faster.”

Nicole giggled until the laugh overwhelmed her and she was gasping for air. He released her hands and she threaded them around his neck. She buried her face against his throat and laughed.

“There’s something really wrong with you,” she said when she could breathe again. “I’ll send you a video.”

He brightened instantly. “Really?”

“Yes. And dirty letters.”

“Promise?” He nibbled along the edge of her jaw, guiding her slowly backward toward their bed, stacked high with his two duffle bags and all the crap he still hadn’t packed.

But he didn’t care.

“I promise. And you’re going to be late.” Her voice caught in her throat.

“Screw it,” he whispered. “This is the last chance to make love to my beautiful wife before I have to go traipsing across the desert like Lawrence of Arabia.” He nibbled at her earlobe while his hand slipped down her belly to the moist head between her thighs. “Tell you what. You send me a picture of yours and I’ll send you a picture of mine. Maybe I can get him a little horse and saddle and send you a picture. Maybe a Barbie camel. I can put him in a little man dress.”

She laughed and Carponti’s heart swelled in his chest at the sound of it.

“I’m going to hold you to that.” She traced her fingers over his scalp, her body soft and warm against his erection. “I want a picture of him in a man dress in exchange for a video of the deployment boyfriend.”

Her legs bumped into the back of the bed and he followed her down. Tangled between the duffle bags and his uniforms, he made love to her one last time before he got on a plane and headed to war.

Madison gritted her teeth as the midmorning sun glared off the snow-covered mountains and the GPS cheerfully informed her she was going in the wrong direction. She wasn’t. The problem was the town of Christmas was off the grid. She’d been lucky to find a map that showed it actually existed. And Harrison had the nerve to insinuate her visitor projections were too low? Like hell they were; no one would be able to find the place.

As the number of protesters grew yesterday, she’d practically had to tackle Joe to stop him from picking up the phone and reopening negotiations. He’d only relented once Madison had offered, as a last-ditch resort, to go to Christmas and turn the public relations nightmare around. She hadn’t figured out exactly how to do that, but she would. Hartwell Enterprises’ survival depended on her.

Harrison had pulled out all the stops in his campaign to be sent in her place. He’d gone from charming to butt-kissing to whining in a New York minute. But three hours later, Joe had conceded that Madison was the best one to convey her findings to the people of Christmas. Of course, she was to do so in such a way that they would understand the decision was in everyone’s best interest.

Which meant she was supposed to charm and cajole the citizens of Christmas and kiss a baby or two—so not her strong suit. But she’d suck it up and get the job done. Otherwise, she might not have one.

She’d flown out on the red-eye, arriving early this morning at the Denver airport, wasting an hour trying to locate the car and driver Harrison offered to arrange for her. Only to find out it had never been ordered. She should’ve known better. Harrison was probably sitting in her office dreaming of her demise, which was highly likely given her limited driving experience and the hairpin curve she’d just rounded in the rented SUV.

The man in the car behind her blasted his horn as he sped by. If she wasn’t terrified of letting go of the wheel, she would’ve flipped him the bird. She needed something to calm her nerves. She slowed down to turn up the radio when “Independent Women” by Destiny’s Child came on.

Madison loved to sing, even though her friends encouraged her not to. No matter what they said, she didn’t believe she sounded that bad. Her confidence returned as she belted out the empowering lyrics. The town of Christmas wouldn’t know what hit them. She’d have them eating out of her hand in no time once she expounded on the evils of bringing corporate America to their sleepy little town.

She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. She’d been on the road for over three hours. According to the map, she should be approaching the turnoff to Christmas right about now. Perfect. There it was. If the meeting went as planned, she’d be back on the road by 2:00, which meant the most hair-raising part of her drive would still be in daylight.

Her breath caught as she made the turn. The town, nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains, looked like it belonged in a snow globe. Sunlight sparkled on snow-laden evergreens and danced off the pastel-painted wooden buildings in the distance. It was postcard perfect and exactly the ammunition Madison needed to convince the town that Hartwell Enterprises had done them a favor by backing out of the deal.

She’d focus on the town’s positive attributes and not the negatives that had made the case against them. Like this road, she thought, her good mood evaporating as her tires spun out beneath her. She slowed to a crawl, a white-knuckled grip on the wheel. Three-quarters of the way down the treacherous hill, as she was about to release the breath she’d been holding, a movement to her right caught her attention. A deer leaped from the woods, darting in front of her. She braked hard, the car fishtailing as she slid along the road. From behind a cluster of evergreens at the side of the road, a twelve-foot Santa holding a “Welcome to Christmas” sign seemingly sprang out in front of her like a giant jack-in-the-box.

Madison screamed. Her foot mistakenly jumped to the gas instead of the brake. She watched in slow-motion horror as the car kept moving and crashed into the sign. Santa loomed, teetered, then fell on the hood, his maniacal, smiling face leering at her through the cracked windshield.

Her last thought before the airbag slammed into her face was that she’d finally succeeded in killing Santa.

“You’re standing beneath the mistletoe,” he said. Again, the remark simply emerged without prior formation. He was beginning to feel unbalanced by the strange effect this woman had on him.

         “I beg your pardon?”

         Darius pointed upward to where a sprig of ribbon-wrapped mistletoe dangled from the doorway just above Penelope’s head. She followed his line of sight, two spots of color appearing on her cheeks as her lips parted. He half expected her to step away from him, but instead—unless he was imagining it—she seemed to shift an infinitesimal degree closer. Warmth unfurled in his blood.

         “One who stands beneath the mistletoe requires a kiss,” he continued, unable to follow the direction of his thoughts, which no longer seemed to be his own.

         Neither did his body, which had surrendered to the wild beating of his heart and an odd shortness of breath. He wanted to unfasten his cravat and feel cool air against his skin because this proximity to Penelope was making him hot from the inside out, and nothing he told himself would quell the sensation.

         He could not stop staring at her lips. They were pink and plump, with an indentation in the top lip. If he were to place his finger there, it would fit perfectly within that little notch. So too would the tip of his tongue.

         Columna. Colures. Comata.

         Combustion.

         An inflammation of light and heat. He felt the explosion in his chest at the thought of settling his mouth against Penelope Darlington’s perfect lips, feeling her body pressed to his, sliding one hand to the back of her neck so he could angle her head and deepen the intensity of the kiss…

         “I don’t believe in such fables, Mr. Hall.” Her clear voice sliced through his imaginings.

         Darius didn’t have imaginings. At least, he hadn’t before now. Certainly not ones about kissing Penelope Darlington, her hands clutching his shoulders and her hips arching into his…

         Darius drew in a hard breath and attempted to regain control of his unruly thoughts and even more uncontrollable body.

         “You’d take the chance, then?” he asked.

         “What chance?” she asked, resting one slender hand against the doorjamb as if for support. She still hadn’t moved away from him. Her cheeks were still flushed pink, and her scent filled his head.

         “If a woman is denied a kiss while standing beneath the mistletoe, it is foretold that she will not marry the following year,” Darius said.

         “Is that so?”

         “Indeed.”

         Penelope laughed that bell-laugh again, and for an instant Darius thought she had read his desires.

         “Oh, Mr. Hall, I assure you,” she said, and then she took a step away from him. A cool breeze swept into the empty space where she had just been standing.

         “I shall marry,” Penelope said. “Most certainly, I shall. And I need not even wait until next year.”

         Darius frowned. His analytical brain fit the pieces of that puzzle together with ease. And he did not like the result one bit.

         “I didn’t know you were planning a wedding, Miss Darlington.”

         “You don’t know much about me at all, Mr. Hall.”

         “I know you’ll not find any exhilaration with Simon Wilkie.”

         Her eyes widened, and she took a startled step back. “W-what?”

         “If that is what you still seek, he is not the one who will provide it.”

         “What do you know of such things?” Penelope asked, her voice tightening. “In all those years you visited my father’s shop, I’d never known a more serious, practical person. Far more interested in gears, levers, and the workings of machines rather than…than…”

         “Exhilaration?” Darius supplied.

         The color darkened on her cheeks. “Rather than life, Mr. Hall.”

         He stared at her. The obedient, dutiful Penelope Darlington was telling him he didn’t know how to properly live?

         “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

         “Of course you don’t because you’ve never felt it.” She extended a forefinger and poked him in the chest. “When I tried to explain it to you, you looked at me as if I’d gone mad. People like you know nothing about intangibles, all those things someone can feel inside and not have any idea what to do with. Things that have nothing to do with duty and practicality and everything to do with wanting to feel.”

         “I know how to feel, Miss Darlington.” He moved closer to her, lowering his voice a notch. “I assure you.”

         “You do not.” She lifted her chin, though a visible tremor went through her. “That day when I tried to tell you about being daring and bold, feeling joy and, yes, exhilaration, you started talking about the components of the atmosphere. I mean, really, of all the ridiculous things one could say to a girl who simply wanted a—”

         All thought fled from Darius’s brain. He grasped the back of Penelope’s neck and lowered his head. Combustion.